Duodenary
by caprelloidea
Summary: Intending to return to Neverland after his quest for revenge comes to an abrupt end, Killian Jones finds himself in Duodenary, a realm whose existence allows Neverland, and the people therein, to live forever. After months of trying and failing to find a way to go home, a princess comes looking to him for help.
1. Part One

Summary: Intending to return to Neverland after his quest for revenge comes to an abrupt end, Killian Jones finds himself in Duodenary, a realm whose existence allows Neverland, and the people therein, to live forever. After months of trying and failing to find a way to go home, a princess comes looking to him for help.

Warnings: Language

Notes: For justanotherwannabeclassic, who sent me the following: "Prompt: I'm feeling quite celebratory for the upcoming holiday, so Killian, Emma, and fireworks." I was thinking it would be fun to do it in a fantasy realm, and then this is what happened. Love and gratitude to high-seas-swan, literatiruinedme, and seastarved for reading it through, and again to seastarved for helping me with the banner. This story is complete, only in need of minor revisions. I'll be posting one part every other day. I hope you like it!

* * *

Killian Jones, leathers and all, sits in a skiff in the warm waters of a shallow, coastal bay, preparing to step out where no one else dares.

The _Jolly Roger_ is miles away, out on Clockwork Bay proper, where the great, circular current turns and turns, trapping any sailor fool enough to cross into the calm waters of the gyre. The land of Duodenary itself is an atoll, divided rather equally into twelve counties, called Duos. Down in the very southern – or _six o'clock_ , that is, having spouted cardinal directions to the locals before, only to be met with complete and utter confusion – corner of the island, there's a narrow outlet to the greater oceans. They're called the Pelagy, and they're frightful seas. When he'd first arrived months ago, intending to go back to Neverland after he'd returned to the Enchanted Forest, only to find the Dark One a distant memory, he'd nearly lost the _Jolly Roger_ to the writhing waves. The salts were incredibly potent, burning in his lungs as they'd sailed through a storm, and he'd known immediately that he wasn't where he wanted to be.

 _Wanted_ , perhaps, being too strong of a word.

Several months – and the grueling process of adjusting to a new realm, with new magics and monsters and, perhaps worst of all, _laws_ – behind him, he now finds himself knee deep in a shallow bay in one of the twelve counties. Despite any wish they might have to return, he and his crew still have to survive. _Surviving_ he's more than familiar with, and so he – and his crew, to an extent, although they seem to be content to live from the fruits of his own labors – turns himself into a wrangler. That is, he's a seeker of magical creatures, and the power they possess.

It had caught him much by surprise when he'd discovered that it's not jewels and gemstones, metals and fine cloths that are valued in Duodenary. Or at least, not nearly as valuable as the magic he finds in the great animals living in the sea. And so Killian, being a pirate, had followed the prizes where they had lead. He and his crew had sailed around the inner circumference of the atoll, from Duo Nine to Duo Eleven, just the night before, where they'd thrown their riches around for an entirely absurd amount of wine. Come morning, to replace the treasures they'd lost, he'd set out to wrangle, as is his supposedly temporary occupation.

Typically, the lot of them grumble when he insists on facing the beasts alone, but on this fine morning, with raging hangovers and sour attitudes, they'd only waved him away before collapsing back below deck.

And so, having only imbibed a touch of rum, he'd rowed in alone on a skiff at precisely four in the morning, when the realm's bright, white sun was only just making its way around the edge of the horizon. Honestly, he and his crew are rich enough to buy estates on land. But – and they say it with less and less conviction each time – they're working to go back to the Enchanted Forest. No amount of money in the sea can open a portal, and when he utters the words _magic bean_ at the locals, they look at him as if he's grown a second head. What better way to search for another way out than to travel the seas, to jump from town to town, never lingering?

 _What better way to die,_ he thinks, on quiet nights, out on the deck where the starlight shines warm and colorful in the darkest part of night, _than to always wander, to allow time to take its toll._

"Now," he says, to himself, once he's made his way into the very shallowest of waters in the clockwise-most direction. Steadied by a curving, rocky shoreline, Killian throws a small anchor down into the sands below. He has a mighty, biting rope coiled down at his feet, and he loops it up and over his shoulder when he steps out and into the waters. Likely, it would be a better idea to shed his clothes before hopping overboard. But there are spirits about, translucent critters whose jelly-like tendrils pluck at his skin, leaving him with something half between painful and pleasant zipping along his legs.

"Where the bloody hell are you?" he says, pulling a spyglass from his coat, wrenching it open with his teeth. He stands motionless, watching the gentle waves around him for any telltale disturbance, waiting and waiting, until –

"Ah." He tucks the spyglass back into his coat. "Got you."

Killian hefts the rope higher over his shoulder. There's a nasty barb at the end, and it squeaks as it drags wetly over the leather of his vest. He tucks it carefully into the coiled loops of the rope. The harbor, of course, is several leagues across, the water dragging at his feet, and so it's slow going across, time ticking away.

The trouble with living in Duodenary, though, is that it _runs_ on time. Even the land itself is reminds him of a clock, the sun turning around and around at the horizon like a burning second hand. Small inlets lead to harbors of all shapes and sizes along the coasts, the one he's currently marching across with some difficulty, boots sinking down into the fine, white sands, just one of eight in Duo Eleven. As a matter of fact, each of the twelve Duos in Duodenary are divided equally amongst the twelve Lordships by the area of sea they possess. Clockwork Bay, he's learned, is much like a commonwealth, seas meant for all, but the harbors belong to the local royalty.

 _Royalty_ , he thinks with a sneer, stepping carefully through a bed of algae, muck slick and heavy on the toes of his boots. Although, he concedes, unlike in the Enchanted Forest, the royalty here is…tolerable. They appear to hold little power, by comparison, and they have little taste for pomp and circumstance, the sort that belies their capacity to kill and maim for their own pleasure.

That is – or so he's told – aside from their annual celebration of their freedom from Neverland.

"From _Neverland_?" he recalls asking.

"Why do you think this place runs on time?" a surly harbor master had told him. Terribly bored, she seemed, to be explaining the minutiae of the history of her realm to a foreigner. But all the same, he had pressed her for more, to which she'd said, "You didn't think Neverland got that way on its own, did you?"

The woman's tone had reminded him of his days in the Royal Navy, under the thumb of stern tutors and a sterner schedule, blushing furiously whenever he couldn't tell them the answer to one of their questions. She'd explained that Neverland was once much like Duodenary, people and animals alike, aging until their inevitable death. Brought more and more quickly by the skirmishes between the two realms. In the end, Neverland valued youth and land, Duodenary valued time and pleasure. So they struck an accord, closing the portals between them, the only connection remaining being the time that flowed to Duodenary, and that which flowed back.

 _That which_ being fuck all, as far as Killian knows. He'd stopped asking questions after that, knowing all he needed to know. That none had passed between the two realms for centuries, and none remained who were interested in doing so.

 _No matter,_ he thinks, stopping in a bare patch of sand as he approaches a pod of what look an awful lot like narwhals. They're small, measuring no larger than the span of his arms, hand to hook. Once more, for good measure, he adjusts the rope around his shoulder, before uncoiling it, the barb at the end swinging like a pendulum by his leg. Here on the edge of the harbor, where pockets of salt water and marsh grasses serve to hide much of the wildlife, he knows the narwhals have retreated. Out in the sands, he splashes the heavy, crooked blade into the water, at which point they begin to scatter.

 _Most_ of them, that is, as he'd suspected. One yet remains – their leader perhaps – her yellow, coiled horn twirling as she spins in the water, threatening him with the jagged point at the end. Hence why none aside from he are foolish to venture into these waters on foot. He twirls the barb once more before he looks carefully over his shoulder, the rope clutched tight in his hand.

When he spots no one, and nothing of consequence, he turns back to the creature, and drops the ugly rope down into the shallow waters below. Startled, she stops her spinning, and swims closer, hesitantly, as he relaxes his stance, tucking his fingers into the loops of his belt. Her beautiful, intelligent eyes shimmer up at him, and with a shake of its head, it appears to asks him a silent question.

"Not what you were expecting, eh, love."

The narwhal snorts, spraying a bit of water on his face. Killian wipes a patient hand over his brow, and grins down at her.

"Let's get down to business, then. I shan't parse my words with you, darling. The people of this realm, they want to take your time from you."

She makes a curious noise, to which Killian waves his hand.

"I think _take_ is perhaps too strong of a word. The time you've lived, magical as you are, is a powerful asset. They'd like that I extract it from you, and sell it to them for an entirely obscene amount of this realm's currency. Which, if you'll forgive the tangent, is made of stone, and takes up nearly half the weight the _Jolly Roger_ will hold. Terribly inconvenient."

He glances down, finds the narwhal peering behind him, no doubt where more of her kind prepare to assault him with their horns. But he remains impassive, shifting back and forth on his feet when she looks back at him.

"In short, the magic I have here in my jacket will do nothing but restore your youth," he says. "They want the years you've already lived, not the ones you have left. And you won't _forget_ , either. That's…important…"

 _Forgetting_ , of course, reminds him of Neverland, and the much more sinister magic that _it_ possesses, still blackening the edges of many of his own memories, it seems. At least the creature before him shan't suffer the same fate.

"So," he says, clearing his throat. "What say you?"

Killian's not surprised that she seems uncertain and so, despite the discomfort, he grimaces, and settles down in the water, sitting in the sand. He's soaked up to his chest, now, but the lady before him seems to appreciate the advantage she gains. She looks him straight in the eye as he reaches his hand into his coat and removes a thin vial filled nearly up to the cork with clear, unsuspecting liquid. It sloshes heavily inside, and Killian holds it out so that she can see, peering up at it with impossibly large, white eyes, swirling with black, like she's a fire inside, smoking to get out.

"I'd pour this on my hook, see?" He splashes his hook in the water, reaches inside his coat to pull out yet another vial, this one empty, clinking neatly against the other. "I'm afraid I'd have to poke you a bit, love."

The narwhal seems altogether displeased by this, although she doesn't leave, like many have before. The narwhal, for its long life and intelligent spirit, is highly valued in the markets of Duo Eleven. Used to heal, light fires and candles, to turn the great windmills when summer sets in and the winds turn tepid – it's a powerful sort of magic. One that he prefers not to use, that he forbids on his ship, outside of grave injuries. They've lived for centuries without it, he figures, they can go without until they find their way back.

 _If_ they find their way back.

"Just a little one," he defends, when she snorts in his face again. "You'll hardly feel it. Poke me back if you wish, darling, you've got the means."

She stills in the water, letting herself drift with the outgoing tide a bit before she swims slowly back. He tilts his head, opens his arms wide, and says, with all the earnestness that he can manage –

"Do you trust me?"

She hesitates, rolls once in the water to rehydrate her skin before she pops back up at him, dipping beneath the surface to nudge at his leg with her coiled horn. Again, he throws a shrewd look over his shoulder before he turns back, and strokes her smooth skin, feeling blubber and muscle beneath. He taps at her horn, marveling at its shape a moment before looking back in her eyes.

"It's up to you, love. If you'd rather not, perhaps you'd like to…speak – " _For lack of a better word_ , he thinks. " – with your companions, see if they're interested, perhaps?"

The narwhal seems to make a decision, then, sidling close, and exposing her pale, tender belly. He pats at it, gently, and lifts his hook where she can see.

"Aye?"

She moves closer still. And so Killian, with the utmost care, nudges at her flesh until he finds a particularly insensitive stretch of skin just beneath her fin. He pours the liquid in the vial over his hook, waits for the rippling magic to settle down into the polished steel before he rests the sharpened tip on her body. It takes a bit of shuffling, but he tucks the vial back into his coat before pulling the cork out of the second with his teeth.

"Did I ever tell you," he says, words partially muffled by the wood in his mouth, "about the narwhals in the Enchanted Forest? Well, of course, I'm sure I didn't, given that we've just met. They're not nearly half as intelligent or beautiful as you, but they are – and this is the truth, love – nearly half the length of my ship."

Killian babbles at her, bidding her between grandiose tales of the narwhals in the Enchanted Forest to remain as still as she can. He's found that the silly stories he tells relaxes the creatures. Builds a rapport, as well. There's a pod of pale pink dolphins just off the shores of Duo Five, who come to him every time he makes port. In the dark of night, when his crew have drunk themselves half to death, he wades out into the lagoon, watered down coffee in his flask, always telling them the same story, of the great orcas in Neverland, who can tear down whales ten times their size. Dolphins love a good, bloody tale, as it turns out.

"There you are, darling," he says, when he has what he needs. With the magic applied to his hook, the time trickled out of her in pale, yellow wisps. The color changes from creature to creature, but the consistency does not. Once he wriggles the cap back down into the glass with his teeth, he watches as the narwhal grows younger, watches her horn shrink and her skin grow brighter. The smoke in her eyes dissipates, and in moments, she looks up at him with clear, crystalline eyes.

"That didn't hurt a bit, now did it?" he says grinning down at her. And he imagines, if she could, she'd be grinning up at him, too.

The narwhal swims in a wide, arcing circle around him, gleeful in her body. It's a wonder to him, really, that there aren't hundreds of wranglers. Although, he supposes, it's easy to spot a creature like her, and worry that her horn could only be up to no good. He's seen wranglers before, stringing whales up by their tales, cutting into their flesh and leaving them to bleed in the water. The very first he'd seen, in fact, he'd waged an easy battle with, toppling the mainsail and forcing the crew to swim to shore. It was later that same evening that he'd returned to the ship alone, only to find the very same whale, flesh wound and all, looking up at him from beneath the water. Curiously intelligent, they are, all of the magical animals in the waters of Duodenary. When Killian had apologized for the crew's behavior, and their ghastly captain, telling him how they were likely sleeping away their exhaustion on the beach, the whale had nudged gently at the hull of the _Jolly Roger_. Of course, then taking the spoils from the brigantine, he'd discovered a handful of vials. It was the price they fetched, really, that convinced him to take up the mantle himself, a _wrangler_ , talking to the sea creatures on a whim, and discovering that, like the whale, they seemed to respond.

"Go on, then," he says, when he stands, nearly toppling over with the weight of the water on his leathers. The narwhal stops before him once more. "Unless you'd like to poke me, first. Do what you need to do, love."

She snorts, one last time, before she sinks beneath the surface, brushing against him before she disappears. The waters around him ripple as she goes, and Killian watches with as much fondness as he dares, out here in the open. The crew thinks he wrangles much like the others they've seen, and he's perfectly happy to let them go on believing it. A reputation, after all, is worth its weight in gold.

"Wrangle it good, did you, Captain?" when he's rowed his skiff back to the _Jolly Roger_. The crew awaits, along with several lifted brows when he drips all over the deck.

Killian smiles, looks back over the bow to spot the narwhal and her companions as they splash through the water, seemingly in farewell.

"Indeed."

* * *

Having learned their lesson – at least for the next day or two – the crew spends their evening in one of the towns, drinking only water as soon as their cheeks begin to flush with the strength of the ale in the taverns. Killian joins them once he sells the magic gained from the narwhal. On his return, shouting gleefully –

"Drinks all around!"

– they'd begun a chant. _Captain Hook_ , they'd said, over and over again, until they'd forgotten what they were doing, and begun to cheat one another at dice. Though it was rarer these days – failing at one's plan for revenge, centuries in the making, can really get a man down – he'd played alongside them, long into the hours of the Duodenarian sunset.

Come morning, he leaves the crew to their own devices, and takes the _Jolly Roger_ back to the very same harbor, unsurprised to find the very same narwhal as well, and several of her companions.

"I'm afraid I only have three of these vials," he says, smiling when a pup, likely born only weeks ago, swims between his legs. "There's an age limit to this thing, you know. I fear I'd wink you straight out of existence."

Once more, he settles in the water, lapping now just at his stomach, the rains thin and the tides shallow. He watches as they seem to tussle amongst themselves, chattering at one another in whatever tongue it is that they speak. He finds himself wondering idly if he could learn it – he knows seven other languages, one more certainly couldn't hurt – but then again, he fears what he would sound like if he tried to make the same noises, a harsh pop in the back of his throat. He doesn't dare try it, even on the water by himself.

"Take your time," he says, and leans back to watch.

Killian realizes that, sitting here like this, a dark spot in clear waters, he's vulnerable. To stray waves, to predators, to enemies. Then again, any enemies he'd made are in Neverland, in the Enchanted Forest. Given that Duodenary knows neither of these realms, he's safer than he has been since…since he was a boy, really, before his mother passed. He's made a few enemies here, of course, but to be frank, he's really only a pirate in title these days. Even what his crew thinks he _steals_ , he asks for. Occasionally a creature says no, and he invents incredibly tall tales of how the animal had bested him, once telling them he'd been swallowed by a whale, only to pry his way back outside of its mouth. At least he lies, he supposes. Cheats at dice. Aside from that, he's become something of a businessman.

It's with these thoughts in mind that he lets his eyes drift close, the narwhals still locked in a raucous debate. If any of his enemies can find him here, then perhaps they deserve to –

"Well this is cute," a voice sounds from behind. Killian, for all his reflexes learned in battle, is slow to get to his feet, and to draw his sword, weighed down, yet again, by wet leather and the sort of warm exhaustion that settles on late spring afternoons. When he turns, the light born of the three o'clock sunshine flashes in his eyes, and he has to shift his stance, and turn his head to catch sight –

 _Bloody hell._

– of the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. Standing, herself, knee deep in the water, arms folded over her chest. She somehow manages to be both sharp lines and soft curves, wrapped in leather and a quiet sort of confidence that gives him pause.

"Not that I don't enjoy a visit now and again," he says. "But who are you, love?"

The lady looks amused, and ignores his question, instead looking down at the narwhals that have fallen silent underfoot. Though at first – when he'd leapt to his feet – they fell in line around him, now they swim relaxed between the two of them. In fact, as he watches, they seem to fall in line with _her_ , swimming around her feet.

"You know," she says, "when your crew told me that you were wrangling in the harbor down counterclock, I _seriously_ wasn't expecting this."

Killian lowers his sword, although he doesn't sheathe it, despite the fact that hers remains at her hip.

"I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage," he says.

"That's kind of the point."

"Care to tell me your name, at least?"

"No," she answers, bluntly.

Despite her brashness, he smiles, looking her up and down. The woman before him must have been panned from the white golds in the mountains of Duo Nine. Wavelets of her hair dance softly on the eight o'clock winds, even tied as they are, fluttering over her shoulder. Her shirt billows in the breeze, revealing a sharp V of creamy flesh. The leathers of her boots and of her pants are plain, but of a high quality. Much like him, she prefers cotton and leather to the silks that have gathered a mad following in the markets of Duo Six. She wears a simple sword at her hip, but this too is tellingly crafted. And when he turns his head, he catches an ornate crest emblazoned in colored onyx just beneath the hilt. It's likely his imagination, but when he leans forward, he thinks she smells of salt and sugar all at once.

The lady begins to fidget under his scrutiny, and so he feigns a bit of a bow, looking away for a moment before he tells her, "Well _my_ name is Killian Jones. Although my some prefer to call me by a – "

"Hook, I know."

 _Well aren't you infuriating_ , he thinks. Talking with her seems to be getting nowhere, and neither does holding his sword. He slides it back into its sheath, and he watches her instead. Watches the way that her eyelashes flutter, head tilting faintly to the side. Surprised by the sheathing of his weapon, then, although given how he'd behaved with the narwhals, she already knows that he's…not quite what he makes himself out to be. At least, not here in Duodenary, where he seems to have the opportunity to start over. Killian takes a step forward, water sloshing up and over the rim of his boots. She looks him up and down, narrowing her eyes, not quite in suspicion, but not wholly in curiosity either. She's _wary_ too, and he judges, by the look in her eye, that she has good reason to be. Next, he swings his hook where she can she, swiping away the moisture on the tip. She glances at it, appraising. Appraising all of him in fact, as she favors one foot, and then the other.

Ah, so she _wants_ something from him.

"You want something," he says, aloud.

She wrinkles her nose, and he knows he has her.

"Come now, love, why the closed lips? If I'm remembering the last few _minutes_ correctly, it's you who approached me. You went to enough trouble to seek out my crew. Tell me what you want."

He takes another step, and she lets her hands fall to her sides. Her pupils dilate, and she licks at her lips. Killian is no less affected, and he thinks, to the growing list in his mind, that she's not uninterested.

"I'm looking for information," she says.

He hums. "Of what sort?"

She shakes her head, biting at her lips.

"No matter," he says, "what could I possibly know that you wouldn't? If you know of me well enough to seek out my crew, you must _also_ know that I'm not from this realm. Although…I am a wrangler." He taps thoughtfully at his chin. "There's nothing telling that you're not one, too, though I've not heard of you."

"You don't even know my name, yet," she protests.

"Oh, _believe me_ , love, if a woman such as yourself were a wrangler, I would have heard."

She frowns, and he presses on. "Well, let's puzzle this through, then, since you seem content to stand silent. You want something from me – information, you say – and the only possible expertise I could have is related to the creatures in your own seas. Bad form not to be educated about your own waters, although I think – "

She doesn't get to hear what he _thinks_ , though, because she lifts her hand, pinches her fingers together and, suddenly, he finds that he's quite _literally_ mute. He grinds his teeth, and gestures at his throat, then at her.

"Listen," she says, as if he has a choice. "My name is Emma Swan. I'm the daughter of the Lordship in Duo Twelve. _Yes_ ,I'm coming to you because you're a wrangler and, although you didn't ask, _no_ , I don't trust you. You're a pirate, and I'm a princess. I'm sure you've heard the stories." She pauses, and although the magic cinching at his throat is harmless, he still bristles. Even so, now that she's in control, the truth comes spilling forth.

"But here's the thing," she continues. "Something's happening, and I'm _trying_ decide if I can at least trust you not to stab me in the back while I tell you what it is. Right now you seem more likely to talk me to death, so I shut you up for a second."

She – _Swan_ , he thinks, turning the name over and over again in his mind – seems to finish, then. Killian waits for a moment, then gestures at his throat once more. He expects a deft flick of her wrist, as easy as the way she'd bitten the words out his mouth. But she looks rather demure. A bit embarrassed, even. She fiddles with the hem of her shirt. At the very least, the inopportune silence grants him a moment to look her from head to foot once more, to watch as the narwhals, still in silent attendance, rest at her feet.

"Okay." She hesitates, and takes a step forward, before she says, with some measure of amusement in her frustration. "I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing sometimes, give me a second."

Killian laughs, or he tries to. She bites her lip when no sound emerges, and goes back to waving her hands. When nothing happens, she seems flustered. She pauses, breathes deep before she attempts to summon the magic once more. He, meanwhile, taps impatiently at his wrist. This, he's learned, is the Duodenary equivalent of telling one to go get oneself buggered by an animate sword. As he suspected she might be, Swan is terribly affronted, and the next motion of her hands gives him back his voice.

"My apologies, love, I – "

"Seriously?"

She stalks around him, stepping towards his skiff as though she's ready to command him to weigh anchor. Truth is, he's so enthralled, he might actually do it before he could get his head on straight.

"You're a real piece of work, you know that?" she says.

"Aye, it's been said before." He clears his throat, and then, "Now tell me, Emma Swan, why might _I_ , a lowly Captain, be interested in helping _you_ , a close relative of a Lordship? And what's this _something_ that's happening?"

"I…"

Killian steps closer, looks her straight in the eye, trying to look as trustworthy as he can. She grinds her teeth, chewing on her lips before she says –

"It's the sea." And though she's been careful to shutter herself from him, she can't seem to help the grief that creeps into her tone of voice. "The magical creatures that you wrangle. They're…"

He quirks a brow. "They're _what_ , Swan?"

"I'd rather show it to you."

Killian hums, leans back on his heels. "First you startle me, then you make demands, use dubious magic – "

"A _silencing_ spell is _not_ dubious."

" – and _now_ you're bound and determined to show me something. I have to admit, Swan, you've lost me."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I was never planning on asking for your help in the first place."

"Oh? Then why are you?"

She hesitates, and looks down at the narwhals by her feet. She shuffles, digs a bit deeper down into the sand, and then peers back up at him from beneath her lashes.

"You don't hurt them," she says, simply. "Why?"

Killian looks down, too, eyes coming to rest on the first of the narwhals that he'd wrangled, for lack of a better term. She peers back up at him, eyes still bright, youth restored, body buzzing happily as she swims and swims, in tight circles around and between them.

"I've committed all manner of sins, love," he says. "I can't atone for them, it's too late, but I _can_ , at least, avoid digging myself an even deeper pit in hell."

Emma frowns, and when she looks up at him, squinting against the sunlight dappling off the water, he's struck with a sense of familiarity. Like he's known her before. Like if he reached out and touched her, he would remember the way that her skin felt under the weathered pads of his fingers. He tilts his head, and when he scratches beneath his ear, she watches his hand, and he feels that the gemstones in her eyes have been haunting his dreams for centuries, now. Her voice when she speaks, the way she drums her fingers against the hilt of her sword – it's all so terribly familiar, and yet not.

"So is this how you always do it?" she says. "You ask them? Let them decide?"

He shrugs. "They're perfectly intelligent creatures, Swan, they can choose for themselves. There's perhaps nothing more cruel than not letting something be in control of itself."

Yet again, she appears to scrutinize him, looking him up and down. He waits, patiently, and prepares for the long haul. But she surprises him, closing the distance between herself and his skiff with a few, long strides, and says, with grave finality –

"I'm taking you."


	2. Part Two

Summary: Intending to return to Neverland after his quest for revenge comes to an abrupt end, Killian Jones finds himself in Duodenary, a realm whose existence allows Neverland, and the people therein, to live forever. After months of trying and failing to find a way to go home, a princess comes looking to him for help.

Notes: Thanks to all who read/favorited/followed/reviewed! I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoy part two. Part three goes up on Wednesday.

* * *

"Well this is an interesting turn of events," Killian says, when they step from the skiff and onto the deck not half an hour later. "A princess kidnapping a pirate. _And_ his ship, for that matter."

"For the last time, I am _not_ kidnapping you. I just want to show you something."

"I suppose this is where I am bent to your every whim. Sometimes rather literally."

Emma rolls her eyes, and leans against the railing of his ship like she owns it. He turns to tease her a bit more, to suss out whether she truly means what she says. But he finds himself at a loss for words, particularly when she crosses one leg over the other. Again, he's struck with a sense of familiarity. Not quite that he _truly_ knows her – even realms and lifetimes apart, no time nor force could convince him to forget Emma Swan.

 _Still_ , he thinks, regarding her intently.

It reminds him of his travels, after he'd shed his loyalty to the Royal Navy, and convinced the _Jewel_ to allow him to call her _Jolly_. There were certain realms, certain islands off the coasts, draped in brilliant, silvery stone and powerful waterfalls – all of them jutting out into crystalline waters, underwater grass stretched out in meadows like emeralds – that felt like home. He recalls walking the shorelines, feeling distinctly as though he'd been there before, recognizing a boulder here and there, remembering the way the palms and pines stretched up and out against the horizon, even though he'd never seen them before.

This is much the same. Emma stands on his ship, soft brown leathers on her feet, her legs, and rough, blue and white cotton over her chest and arms. He remembers the way her sword rests at her hip. He remembers the way that she licks at her lips, the way the skin by her eyes wrinkles when she smiles. And, of course, he remembers the dent in her chin, can almost feel it beneath his thumb, hair slipping through his fingers.

But…all the same, he _doesn't_ remember her. Like she's hope. Like she's _home_.

" _What_?" she says, fidgeting harder the longer he looks at her.

"Just thinking," he answers. She arches a neat brow, and he grins affectedly. "About whether you'll keep me tied below deck. In the cabin, no doubt, although there's a perfectly suitable brig near the bilge. Smells terrible, of course, but that can't be helped."

"Are you done?"

"As long as you continue _not_ telling me where we're going, I'll just have to guess."

"Listen, Killian…"

He frowns at the sound of his name, and Emma seems to catch it, trailing off, and looking up at him as she steps closer.

"Hook?" she amends.

"Killian will do," he says, quietly.

She hesitates before she continues, "Have you heard of the Rise?"

Killian wracks his brain. As easy to adjust as he usually is – as long as he has his ship in tow – each realm has its own, innumerable quirks. Especially those run on all sorts of curious magic, like Neverland and its apparent counterpart.

"You'll have to remind me, Swan," he says. "I'm afraid I haven't been here very long."

She waves him off. "Are you kidding? Some people, born and raised, don't really know what it is."

Emma walks over to port, leaning over the gunwale. She looks down at the water, and although, with the sudden onset of dreary weather and unpredictable winds, the water is slate gray, showing nothing beneath, Killian wonders what she sees. That is, how she thinks, what makes her tick, for lack of a better metaphor.

"Have you seen the spirits?" she says.

"Ah, yes. Like jellyfish, most of them." He looks down at her, and she at the water. Surely she feels his eyes on her, but she doesn't look at him, and doesn't whinge when he – well, when he _stares_ , really, like a git.

"That's what the magical creatures of Duodenary turn into when they die," she says.

"Aye, that much I've seen."

"And then they travel to Duo Twelve, to a lake, where they rise."

"Rise," he parrots.

"To Neverland."

Killian tries to imagine it, creatures not unlike jellyfish, arriving in Neverland from some unknown location. Perhaps he'd seen it before. Perhaps he'd forgotten. Neverland is funny that way, playing with his memories, driving him nearly to madness, sometimes, when he tries to recall little things about his family, his Milah, seeing nothing but shadows. Then sometimes, he's hit with a deluge of the very same memories, bitter and heavy and smelling like all the blood that he'd shed. It seems random at times. Although, more often than not, he seems to forget all that drives him to anger, to ruin. The flora and fauna, the paths through the trees, the layout of the islands themselves – these he can't seem to forget, living maps in his head. But still, nothing of the spirits he's seen in these waters.

"I've not seen it, truth be told," he says. "Although, I'm only one man, with only the one ship. I could have missed it."

Emma agrees.

"It doesn't happen that often, and there usually aren't that many at a time. But…" She falls silent when she looks up at him, and the expression on her face tugs sharply at his chest. "…you wouldn't miss it _now_."

"And why is that?"

"Because it started three weeks ago, and it hasn't stopped."

He quirks a brow. "I take it that's much longer than usual?"

"This is a _one_ day even we're talking about, Killian, maybe once a week or so. Three straight _weeks_. How many creatures have died, while I've just been…"

Her shoulders slump, and Killian clenches his jaw, drags his teeth back and forth while he watches her weigh herself down.

"While you've _just_ been demanding pirates help you with your cause? _Just_ been kidnapping them when they hesitate?"

She smiles, wanly. "I did _not_ kidnap you."

He smiles back, lets the tension in her neck settle before he speaks. And when he does, it's as gentle as he can manage, recalling a part of himself that he hasn't known in centuries.

"What could I possibly do, love?" he says. "I wrangle creatures – "

" _Wrangle_ being used loosely, here."

" – _wrangle_ the creatures of the sea, but what could I know that you don't? You were born here. I'm merely a visitor. Although, curiously enough, the people here don't seem to mind. Haven't had a foreigner in years, yet I arrive from Neverland, and they simply shrug it off."

"They probably think you're lying," she says, absently.

"Can't fake this accent, love."

She huffs. "I bet they could."

"Can't fake two and half _centuries_ of life, either. Although…" He pats at his chest. "…can't prove it."

Emma doesn't seem surprised by his admission, only folding her arms over her chest, and repeating, "They could totally fake it."

 _Could not_ , he wants to answer, but he's not a child. So he simply watches her, while Emma watches _him_ , watches and waits, and the longer she does, the more exposed he feels. She may be something of an open book, but it's like his pages aren't even bound, not where she can see. He has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to resist the urge to scratch at his ear.

"They say you're tenacious," she says, at length. "That you're out on the water, day and night. That there's nothing you can't catch?"

Killian looks down at his feet, and she steps closer.

"Or nothing you can't _convince_ , anyways," she says, and when he looks back up, she's smiling. Freely, this time.

"Are you going to ransom my secrets, Swan?"

"I'm thinking about it."

"So tell me, then, why do these spirits travel to Neverland? To arrest time, perhaps? They're already dead, so I'm not sure I see the point."

" _You're_ the one who lived in Neverland for like a million years. Why do I have to tell you how it works?"

"Duodenary isn't exactly common knowledge, love, strangely enough. Although, Neverland is a realm with no time, so I think perhaps we're using _strange_ incorrectly."

"It's not that it has _no time_. It used to. When Duodenary split ties with Neverland, it was on the condition that we took their time, and that they leave us be."

Killian frowns, scratches at the scruff on his jaw. "How, exactly, does one _take_ time? From what I understand, it just…is. Flowing like water, faster in some realms than others. Stagnant in Neverland. Fairly normal here, although you lot appear to have a lurid fascination with the whole concept."

Emma wrinkles her nose. "I'm not sure how to explain it. It's like a…kind of a magic? It's not the water, it's the power that makes the water flow. Take that power, shunt it over here. In return, Neverland will live forever, and we have a steady flow of something that we can use to build, to heal – "

"To fight?"

Emma pauses, and he has the distinct feeling she's calling on memory.

"Do you want to see it or not?" she says.

All at once, Killian feels as though he's looking at two branches in the strait. He's told this woman what he knows, and that could easily be the end of it. Perhaps he could tell her more by watching this _Rise_ , but he doubts he could be of much help. He's never been much help to anyone. Then again – and he looks down at her at the thought – there's something in her eyes… _hope_ he's neither seen nor borne since the Royal Navy agreed to take he and his brother. This woman has her family, most likely, and she has her land, and there's clearly nothing he could say that could stop her. He wonders, if he goes, will she find it within herself to hope for him too? Hope for something better than mere survival, for him to stay. He tilts his head, and gazes intently into her eyes. Her lashes flutter, but she doesn't look away, and rather suddenly, he thinks, unbidden –

 _I was born half in love with you._

Killian's nostrils flare, and he looks down at her feet.

"Aye," he answers her, quietly. He clears his throat, and forces a cavalier smile on his face. "But a Duo over, is it not? I don't see the harm."

As he goes to the helm, he sheds his dripping coat, and he can feel her scrutiny at his back. Along the way, he taps at the chain holding the anchor, and it coils at his command. He tugs on the rigging, and the _Jolly_ listens, sails unfurling as he walks. He's no doubt that, as he prepares to leave, she can sense the lie on his face, the sudden and cloying desperation for purpose, brought on by a passion he's only ever worn for the sake of revenge.

"Alright, love," he says, catching his hook on the handles of the wheel. "Lead the way."

Emma, now leaning by the lanterns on the bow, attention caught by a shoal of fish, spares him hardly a glance.

"I get the feeling you don't say that very often," she says.

"Give me a few moments more, and I may change my mind."

She sighs, long suffering, though she smiles – if not warily. But he's a man who knows how to count his good fortune – so he smiles back, when she comes to stand by the helm. He adjusts his posture, half in the hope that he can watch her, subtly, out of the corner of his eye, and half because, embarrassingly enough, her close proximity makes him feel as though he's forgotten how to stand. She opens her mouth, no doubt to guide him, when stares at his arm. It stings under her gaze, or at least it seems to, until she reaches out to touch him, and it stings even _brighter_ beneath her fingers.

"Ow," he says.

"I think something cut you."

"Just leave it, love, it's hardly a – "

Hardly a _scratch_ , he means to say, but then she lays the palm of her hand over the wound. He looks down, and the blood, somehow without him realizing, dries down between his fingers, coating the back of his hand. Whatever it was – a narwhal, perhaps, a sharp shell, a cutting eel – left a much deeper gash than he realized, and he gasps when the flesh ties itself neatly back together, and the blood seems to retreat.

They stand together, silent for a moment, before she steps back, clears her throat, and says –

"Duo Twelve. It's three harbors in the counterclock direction."

He hesitates, for reasons he's not yet sure he comprehends. But then he nods, and pulls sharply on the wheel with his hook, the click of the spokes and the flutter of the sails ringing out across the waters.

"As you wish," he says, grinning down at her.

And to his delight, she smiles back.

* * *

It's dark, of course, by the time they reach the harbors of Duo Twelve. Light in Duodenary is in fairly short supply, the sun rushing around the edges of the atoll, giving each county hardly more than an hour of full sunlight. The silver lining, of course, is that, given the severe angle of the star, each night and each morning gives a spectacular sunrise and sunset, lasting hours on each end. The sky is more often set aflame than not.

"We'll have to row in from here," she says, when the _Jolly Roger_ has reached the limit of her depth. Killian drops anchor, then leaning over the starboard side to watch and to listen.

This particular harbor, he's never seen before. Granted, it's terribly shallow, and there are no docks to speak of, no villages, no signs of life whatsoever. That is, aside from the grass that sways down beneath the water, trembling with what he's sure are creatures of all sorts, burrowing in the sands and slithering down deep in the shadows. Trees wave along the coast, with leaves a vibrant shade of blue, weeping their leaves down into the water, growing ones anew even as the old float on the water's surface. Fireflies blink in rough tandem in their canopy, off rhythm to the sound of the crickets chirping loudly from the underbrush.

"I'll admit, Swan," he says, pulling idly on the ropes securing the skiff. "It's a beautiful place."

He pulls a little harder, though he nearly trips on air – standing _still_ , even – when Emma lays her hand on his arm. Her fingers are warm, even through the layers of leather and fabric, and he's sure he does a shite job of schooling his expression when he looks down at her.

"Come look," she says, pulling on his elbow. He's helpless to follow, of course, to look where she points, and –

"Seven hells," he says, when he sees them. Spending as much time in the water as he does, he's seen the spirits coalesce from the bodies of some of the greater, magical creatures. But never before has he seen quite so many, floating sluggishly through the calm waters, up towards a dark, winding river that empties into the bay.

"See what I'm talking about?"

"I do."

They watch the procession for a while longer, she in sorrow and he in awe, before he returns to the skiff, pulls harder and faster on the fastenings, until the pulleys above squeak to life.

"Give me a hand, will you, Swan?"

"Is that a hand joke?"

He gives her a _look_. "Hardly. I've had quite enough of those to last _all_ the lifetimes I could have lived in Neverland."

"Fine, _fine_ ," she grumbles, almost as if she wishes it _were_ a hand joke. He files that away for future reference, and directs her in helping him lower the boat to the water. The ladder – made of the same, dubiously sturdy twining rope that holds the boat in place on the ship – is next to follow, unfurling against the hull with an unflattering _thwap_.

"Well _that_ sounds super safe," she says, peering over the railing.

"I've been climbing it up and down for decades, Swan, it'll do."

"Maybe it's time to get something new."

He looks at her, sharply, before swinging his legs over and down on the steps. He's nearly halfway down when she follows, grumbling all the way.

"Is it just me, or does this rope look like it could just burst into flames," she says.

"If you set my ladder on fire, love, you'll be swimming home."

She huffs as she climbs down the last few rungs. At the end, she merely hangs on tight, the boat just barely out of reach of her legs. Her knuckles are white, and she peers warily over her shoulder, down at the last several hands between her and the water.

"I'm gonna fall and die," she says.

He laughs, and lays his hand at the small of her back. Whatever else she was about to say seems to catch in her throat. Killian grits his teeth, somehow both irritated and pleased that neither of them can touch the other without a fair bit of tense silence. The hours since they met, feeling like years.

"Careful," he says, just before she leaps into the boat, nearly capsizing the both of them.

He frowns when they settle. "As graceful as your namesake, eh, Swan?"

"Shut up," she says.

From there they paddle upriver, following the intrusion of the swelling tide. The waters of the river are deep, and so in the darkness – the moon always beneath the horizon, or so he'd been told – the spirits disappear under the surface.

"How far?" he says.

"Just a few leagues."

 _Just a few leagues_ , he thinks, mocking the cavalier tone of her voice. In the keel of the small skiff, he watches her shoulders bunch beneath her shirt, paddling calmly along the waters. The current is slow, at least, and so it's none too difficult to make steady progress.

What _is_ difficult is watching the siren before him, and trying to catch his bearings. When he'd landed in this realm, out on the billowing salts of the Pelagy, it had been a nuisance, to say the least. When time began to tick by – being no closer to returning to Neverland, or even to the Enchanted Forest – and he'd felt himself settling into the role of wrangler, all thoughts of revenge too muddied by the magic of Neverland to sustain him any longer, it had been…less of a nuisance. The Dark One vanquished, his centuries for naught, trapped in an unfamiliar realm, he'd satisfied himself with mere survival. It's the only thing he's good at, it seems.

Then comes Emma Swan. Looking at her feels like living. He's not sure how he feels about that.

"We're getting close," she says, just when he thinks he can no longer bare the sight of the starlight in her hair.

The river opens wide into a salt lake, black marsh grasses growing tall along the edges of the salt lake. And though it – like all the bodies of water in Duodenary – is beautiful, it's the magic that catches his attention, shimmering across the surface, trembling in the wake left behind their skiff.

"I don't see anything, love," he says. "You said – "

"I know, I know," she says. "It stops and starts sometimes. Just give it a minute and twenty seconds, give or take."

"Give or take," he grumbles. Of all the colloquialisms, he could do without the eerily precise measures of time given by the locals. He wonders, idly, how much time they spend keeping _track_ of time.

After her minute – _and twenty seconds_ – has passed, Emma looks out over the gunwale. As if in response, the faint shimmer out on the water grows brighter, and the current begins to tremble, turning over and over under her stare. She reaches out, and lays her palm flat against the surface. The waters calm for a moment, before the thick shade of pitch begins to fade, and a faint, blue, ethereal glow lights up the lake entire. Killian holds his breath, watching, _waiting_ , until the spirits begin their Rise. Much like jellies, their membranous bodies flutter in the soft, noontime winds. The purple-bright starlight seems caught in their flesh, rippling outward, until even the vegetation at the water's edge shines. More and more meander up and into the air around them, and the magic intensifies, until the very air seems to quake, until it's like –

"Like looking through a glass of water," Killian says. He reaches out to prod gently at one of the large spirits, its long, flowing tendrils brushing over his wrist. Another wraps its tentacles around his hook. They linger, as if in greeting, before floating towards the sky. They watch in silence until they can't see the shoreline, for the masses. He feels something on the back of his neck, and turns, watching some, hardly the size of marbles, rising much more quickly than the rest.

"We call those gooseberries," Emma says, in explanation. She smiles when he echoes the unfamiliar word. They're like _bubbles_ , he thinks. Unlike their animal counterparts, they are without sting, without malice, as they rise higher and higher into the sky. When he looks back down into the water below, there seems no end to them. He reaches down, stirs them with his hook. The gentle wake around the polished metal begins to glitter, imbued with colors of all sorts, some he can't describe, living in the corners of diamonds.

"I'm not sure what you're hoping I can do, Swan," he says, at length.

When she doesn't answer, he glances at her, and spots sadness, _mourning_ , written all over her face. Here where the world seems to turn upside down, he recognizes that the spectacle around him is indicative of death, a great deal of it. Even so, he can't help but to marvel.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" she says.

"Aye."

Emma falls silent, at least until he looks at her.

"You know," she says, "I never did care about this, when I was a kid. These things are weird and squishy and they're _dead_ and that just grossed me out, honestly."

Killian watches her. "What changed?"

She shrugs. "I grew up. I lived and I lost, and then one day I came here, after…" She lets the word _after_ hang in the air for a while, before she clears her throat, "And you know what I saw?"

He shakes his head, only ever so slightly, afraid to break the spell that's come over and between them.

Breathing deeply, she answers herself, "Just creatures. And magic. Living and dying, the way we're supposed to." Emma pauses, and leans forward. He can't help but to mirror, until their knees brush, and her hand comes down over his hook. He holds his breath, then lets it out in a puff. She looks up at him, and once again, he's struck with a distinct feeling of familiarity, alongside the _more_ distinct desire to tuck her hair just so, _just_ behind her ear.

"What are you asking me to do, love?" he says.

"Like I said, I didn't care much for these things when I was younger, and here's the thing, I don't really have much time to come down here. I don't really know…what they're _supposed_ to look like. You're a wrangler. Just _look_ at them, and tell me what you see."

He looks at her instead, until she frowns.

"There are other wranglers, darling," he says.

"Yeah, well…they proved to be a dead end."

"Ah, so, I wasn't your first choice."

Emma sighs, holds tighter to his hook, and tugs. "None of you were."

Killian waits for her to elaborate. She doesn't, only waits, increasingly impatient. He'd find it amusing, if not for the underlying fear, the deep seated concern. And sorrow. Sorrow above all else, empathy for creatures she's never seen, for the hundreds and hundreds of spirits around them. She has a _good_ heart, he thinks, and for all the time that he's lived, he knows that this is the rarest of all.

And so, with careful attention, he turns to watch the spirits rise. He thinks hard on all the ones he'd seen before. He chews on his lips, taps his hook against his thigh.

"There is…" He trails off, reaches out to let the tendrils curl around his fingers. Again, they linger. He tugs, gently, and the spirit nearly falls into the water. "…something off."

"What is it?"

"They're – " He casts about for the proper word. "They're weak. Longer tendrils. Sluggish. When I touch them…"

He reaches out, takes hold of her hand in his. She arches a brow at him, though she allows it. Reaching out, a few of the spirits seem to gravitate towards them – towards her in particular – brushing gently at her hands, at her shoulders. They linger on her, longer than on him, and she closes her eyes.

"Do you feel it?" he says.

"Uh," she answers. "I don't think so."

He hums, and lets her hand go.

"I've spent months on your waters, Swan. When these spirits pass, they don't sting, but they do leave a bit of magic behind. A sort of – "

"A zap? Yeah…yeah, I've felt that before. I just thought it was only certain ones?"

He shakes his head. "Not in my experience."

Emma leans back where she sits, seems to consider what he's told her. She shifts restlessly in place, again and again, and reaches up to sift her hand through her hair, to pull at the tangles, curled with the salt and the water in the air.

"Emma," he says, softly. She looks at him, surprised to hear her name, perhaps, or surprised at the way he says it. "Tell me what you're thinking."

She hesitates. Then, "It's time, I think."

"Time?"

"Longer tendrils," she parrots him. "Sluggish. Like they're getting too much of it. Like it's moving faster."

He hums. Truth be told, though he's come to know the beasts of this realm, with great care and even greater familiarity, he's still not entirely certain how it all works. It's magic, to be sure. But he's always been distrustful of magic. At least – and he scratches at his arm at the thought – until he felt it knit his flesh back to his bones, and set a fire in his belly.

"It's time," she repeats, sounding sure, or as sure as she'll likely be. Though, when she looks up at him, all the sorrow in her eyes, all the tender confusion, is shuttered.

"You can go," she says.

Killian quirks a brow. "Unless you're wanting me to push you into the waters, love, I think we'll _both_ be going."

She rolls her eyes. "I mean _after_. When we get back. You can go."

He considers her, then. He leans forward, and she seems to sense the challenge, remaining steadfastly in place, the specks of gold in her eyes flashing up at him.

"Aye, I can," he says.

In fact, he almost wants to. This woman is an angel, or a siren, come to dig him up from his grave. The danger with living, is that he can die, much like he did before. When his father, when Milah, when Liam, _when, when, when_. Killian imagines going back to the life he's just beginning to cobble together. He can keep a happy crew, drink himself into a stupor every other night, and wake up the next morning, taking meager solace in the sea, the way it stirs beneath the _Jolly Roger_ , and the beasts he finds underneath. And then, in the interest of fairness, he imagines Emma too. There he finds that, beyond taking her back to his ship, he doesn't see much of anything, the future wrapped in darkness and silence, waiting to be written. Not unlike his first days as a pirate. Adventure ahead, the past behind.

Surviving. Or Emma.

The known. Or the unknown.

 _As if you haven't already chosen,_ he hears, in his brother's voice.

It's with a deliberate smile, then, that Killian reaches out to touch his hand to hers, his fingers running the dips and curves of her knuckles. She looks up at him, and his breath catches for a moment. His heart thuds, and he presses harder, emboldened by the expression on her face.

"I'll help you."

She leans back, lashes fluttering. "You will?"

"I promise."

 _I promise,_ the words echo. All the way back through the Rise, as it grows thicker with the first light of day, the first of several hours of sunrise, as the central star rolls back towards Duo Twelve. When they're back in the river, Killian throws one last, long look over his shoulder, watching as the spirits travel en masse, a great and terrible display of magic.

 _I promise,_ he thinks, wondering – with a heavy, labored, sigh – just what sort of foolishness he's gotten himself into.

* * *

"So," he says, once they've managed their way back to the _Jolly Roger_. "Where shall we start?"

She looks up at him, part sarcasm, part gratitude. "That's where you come in, genius."

Killian smiles, and makes his idle way to the stern, looks over the gunwale and down into the waters beneath. He rubs at his chin, scratches at his scruff, shifts from foot to foot. Emma comes to stand beside him, and now he's _certain_ what he's feeling is real. The familiarity, the stutter in his heartbeat. Though he's not looking at her, he can feel her breathing, feel her shifting, and his body commands that he mirror, until they both stand like duplicate sentries, watches the waves as they lap gently at the hull of the ship.

"You've said this has to do with time," he says.

She nods.

"Particularly the _speed_ of time."

Nods again.

Killian hums, and twirls his rings around his fingers. Truth be told, he's not sure what he can do to help, only sure that he _wants_ to, which is a change of pace.

 _Change of pace…_

"Tell me, love…" He trails off, and scratches at his neck, shifting from one to the other.

 _Change of pace, change of pace…_

"About what?" she says.

"About magic," he answers, and turns to face her. He reaches down to fiddle with his belt buckle. "You said the Rise leads to Neverland. Where does the time come _in_?"

Emma looks thoughtful for a moment. "Everywhere, really."

"Equally?"

"Yes. Why?"

Killian doesn't answer, at least not right away, leaning over the stern once more before walking briskly to the bow. He leans over there, as well, Emma close behind him. He considers the waters beneath, how they lap as they do at the stern, only the gentle rocking of the ship is just that. _Gentle_. Even more so than where the hull tapers off into the bowsprit, into the martingale. And with even greater care, he considers the half-formed plan stewing in his mind. There's something about her – about the way that she walks, the way that she talks – that makes him want to succeed. That gives him pause when he imagines providing her with hope, and then seeing it dashed.

Then again, what's a life without risk? Hope abused, or not?

"Listen, Swan," he says, when he turns back to her. "I've told you what I can about the spirits in the Rise. To be frank, I think my usefulness has run its course."

She scowls, and opens her mouth, likely to refute him, or otherwise verbally eviscerate him. But he interrupts –

"That being said, I think I might have a plan, if you're willing to throw caution to the wind? Perhaps a bit of sanity, as well."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm just thinking about how many times over you could have told me this _plan_ if you weren't too busy talking out of your ass."

Killian laughs, and marches back to the bowsprit, Emma close at his heels.

"So you've said the time flows equal throughout," he says, as he goes along. "Magical creatures live and they die, and their spirits Rise to Neverland. If something in particular is speeding this up, then – "

"Then time would be moving faster, there," Emma says. He stops, then, and turns to watch her as she catches up with him. He expects her to look impressed, and though she does, her smile is none too surprised, somewhat indulgent. "I figured that out while you were asking me questions."

Killian quirks a brow. "Let's call it a tie."

"It's not a contest."

The other quickly follows.

"Anyway, if it were," she says, "I would be winning."

Killian huffs, a quiet puff of laughter, and walks back to the bowsprit, just to make sure that he's right.

"So how are we going to _look_ for this place?" Emma says. "It would take months and months to search all of Duodenary. I'm not sure we have that kind of time."

"That's where I come in." He tilts his head, and she tilts hers in turn. "And you as well."

"How much am I going to hate this?"

He waves her off. "Not at all, Emma. You know the current that runs its circuit around the Gear of Clockwork Bay, of course."

"Yeah, but what – "

"Well, that _too_ runs steady. Not unlike time. From there, you can watch all of the sunsets and sunrises in all the Duos. Perhaps from there, as well, we could watch time as it speeds up."

Emma frowns, thoughtfully twisting a lock of her hair around her fingers. "That could take several days, although I guess – "

"Faster still – "

"You have _got_ to stop interrupting me – "

"Sorry, love, but _listen_ – "

"I _am_ listening – "

"We can ride the current," he says, and smiles despite the scowl on her face. "Even if we _could_ keep an eye on the sunset and the sunrise, all day every day, for all twelve Duos, I doubt we could find any minute differences. But if we ride the current – swift and steady of speed, we can – "

" – find where it speeds up."

Said aloud, it's even more ridiculous than he'd imagined. But Emma appears to consider it. She crosses her arms over her chest, and looks up at the sky. She chews on her lips, soothing the marks on her mouth with her tongue. She sighs, and then looks him up and down, appearing to consider _him_ next. He swallows, and wonders what she finds, if she thinks him wanting, inadequate. He wonders when it began to matter, if it was before or after he turned to look at her in the harbor, looking like she belonged there among the grasses and seaweeds, there among the salts in the water.

"It's not the worst idea I've ever heard," she concedes.

And despite the doubt in her voice, he smiles, and says –

"Music to my ears, love."


	3. Part Three

Summary: Intending to return to Neverland after his quest for revenge comes to an abrupt end, Killian Jones finds himself in Duodenary, a realm whose existence allows Neverland, and the people therein, to live forever. After months of trying and failing to find a way to go home, a princess comes looking to him for help.

Notes: Thanks again to all who read/favorited/followed/reviewed! Part Four goes up on Friday.

* * *

"Are you _sure_ this is going to work?" Emma asks, yet again, as he busies himself on deck.

Earlier in the day, when the stars were still bright, they'd stopped back in Duo Eleven, Killian dropping a handful of stone into the pockets of the first child that he'd seen. He'd told the boy to find a stout man with a red hat, to tell him to keep the crew busy for the next several days. Emma had told him that it was the season for cider, and so Killian's certain they'll spend the next several days thoroughly sloshed, forgetting there ever was a man called Captain Hook. Once they'd left his crew behind, they sailed just to the edge of the current, dropping anchor until the sun had risen, the long sunrise tapering into the overbright light of day.

"No," he answers her. She seems dissatisfied, even more so when he gleefully unfurls the sails, speaking hushed endearments to the ship from time to time, when his strength alone is inadequate, and the magic in the wood she's hewn from stir to life, raising anchor for him, pulling the rigging, and so forth.

"Then _why_ are we doing it?"

He frowns at her when he passes her by. He leaps up to stand on the bowsprit, and here from the edge of the great current of Clockwork Bay, he watches the sun roll around the perimeter of the great atoll from one sunset to the next. He wonders idly if the sun will ever come closer, if it's like a marble dropped in a bowl, racing towards the bottom, or if the inimitable magic of this curious place will hold it where it lies.

"Is that your standard for action, Swan?" He throws a smile over his shoulder, and the Swan in question rolls her eyes. He beckons her forward, and she comes slowly, lazily, in a bit of a zigzag, arriving as if it were her idea all along. Royalty indeed.

"Must you always know the outcome beforehand?" he continues, reaches out to steady her with his hook when she finally joins him astride the proud, jutting cut of enchanted wood. "If so, I'm surprised you sought me out."

He smiles, then, not without mischief. He expects her to smile back, but she takes a step, then another, until she has to crane her neck to look up at him. With the angle of the wood beneath them, Killian towers over her, and there's something about it that sets a gentle fire in the pit of his stomach. He wonders if she realizes, if she can see read the flare in his nostrils, the way that he licks at his lips. She considers him, carefully. She opens her mouth, and again, he expects harsh words, serious words, something to chastise the joy he carries when he rides the waves.

But again – and he seems to remind himself at least once an hour – she doesn't conform to expectations. She reaches up, and her fingers drag lightly over his jaw. His mouth drops open, and when he sighs, his breath stirs the stray hairs falling out of the knot she's tied, curling by her ear. She smells of leather, of course, and bears the faint scent of the sea, a sweet rot, sometimes cloying, always comforting. She pushes forward, and her nails scratch over his nape, until she's grasping tufts of his hair, and tugging, just enough to warm his belly, to make his trousers a growing discomfort. And while this is certainly _not_ what he expected, he feels as though it was an inevitably. He thinks on destiny for a moment, wonders if something is pushing them together, if it's bound in the stars. Then again, when she pulls harder, the only thing currently bounding him to her are her hands on his clothing. If another life had brought them here – if _all_ their lives had brought them to this moment, where her breath tastes like salt and spices, then so be it. In the end, it's _he_ that chooses not to pull away, _she_ who leans further still.

"Emma," he says.

"Killian," she answers. She pulls back, but only for a moment, before she steadies herself enough to grab the lapels of his coat. She pulls him, gently, until she's speaking directly into his mouth. "I only wanted to see. I wasn't going to ask you help me."

He finds it's nearly impossible to speak when he can feel the shape of her mouth ghosting over his. But he swallows – once, twice, then thrice – and then he says, haltingly –

"What changed your mind?"

She shakes her head, and her nose bumps against his.

"I knew you," she says. "I _know_ you."

Killian hums.

"Not like… _know_ you. I've never seen you before. But there's just something…" Emma pauses, and breathes, holding to his coat, the leather squeaking beneath her fingers. "…just _something_ about you."

Perhaps if circumstance were different, he would grin salaciously, lead with his hips and make a remark that would no doubt set her eyes rolling out of her head. But he's caught in a vortex, helpless to spin around her, like the sun round and round the horizon.

"Aye," is all he manages to say.

"I…"

She huffs, holds even tighter to his coat, and then her mouth is on his. He longs to reach for her, to feel the precious metals living in her hair, to map the realms curving over her back, to press and to pull and to know her the way she claims to know him. But he has to hold tight to the rigging. He's a practiced sailor, hasn't lost his balance in nearly a century. But under the tide of her mouth – rising and falling, pushing and pulling, again and again – he feels he could very well fall. Fall and fall, through the Clockwork, out along the unforgiving salts rushing through the Pelagy. When she pauses to breathe, he wonders if that's the last he'll know of her lips, if she's already nothing but a memory. But then, she turns her head, and slants her lips back over his. Even from moments ago, she seems to taste different. Sweet, now, instead of salt. Seconds tick by – by and by and by – until he begins to realize what she means.

He _knows_ her. Somehow. If time were to rewind this very moment, if fate were to drop them in different realms, he's certain she'd find him, or he'd find her. He knows it, just as he knows the way her hand presses gently against his jaw.

"Okay," she says, when she pulls away. "What now?"

 _What now_ , he thinks. It takes him a good while to answer, at least as long as it takes to remember his own name, then to lean back far enough to look her in the eye.

"You stand here," he says. "The back of the _Jolly_ is all heft. Out here on the bowsprit, you'll be able to feel the change in the rush of the waters."

She hesitates, and he hopes he's not breaking some unwritten rule when he kisses the swell of her cheeks, and reassures her, "I've sailed this current for months, Swan. I know as surely as I know port from starboard, they run constant. If time is swelling, or contracting, it should be reflected in that."

"Shouldn't _you_ be standing here, then?"

Killian smiles. "Gods but you're a stubborn lass. It's not that I don't trust you love, but this is – and I hope you'll forgive the pun – a time sensitive matter. It would take more than we have to train you at the helm."

She huffs. "Okay, fine."

He nods, and reaches up to pull down a bit of loose rigging, to wrap it around her arm.

"Hold tight, love. The current is smooth sailing, but I'd rather you be careful all the same."

Emma rolls her eyes, but complies wordlessly, clutching tight to the rope he places in her hand. It's a bit of a dance to shuffle around her and back onto the deck. So much so that his hips, if only for a moment, press tightly against hers. He feels unsteady on his feet as he walks back to the helm.

"Alright, Swan?" he shouts, once he's situated.

"Yep," she shouts back, clinging tighter to the rigging. He breathes deep, and counts to three, savoring the anticipation.

Then he taps twice upon the anchor's twining rope, and it begins to rescind. He rushes towards the helm, and turns the sail into the winds, and then they're off. The wood of his beloved _Jolly Roger_ groans, in protest of days of disuse. She creaks at him, tutting as pushes a bit too hard on the wheel. But when they turn into the current, she quiets, aside from the rustle of the sails, rushing faster and faster with the gentle arc of the crystal waters. From time to time, the _Jolly_ still peeps at him, wondering where he's been, throwing stray breezes at Emma in genuine curiosity.

"She's merely a passenger," Killian says.

The ship leaps over a bit of wake, nearly jostling him off his feet. Emma, he notices, easily stays upright, if only because the ship seems to unsteady in his favor, rocking him back and forth until he says –

" _Fine_. I'm half in love with the woman. Bloody fucking hell."

The ship steadies, seeming rightly pleased with herself.

"You are, of course, my first love, old girl."

The ship hums, before it picks up the pace, turning a hard corner in the two o'clock corner of Clockwork Bay. They steady, and Killian ties off a few ropes, some with his own hand and hook, others with an insistent thought directed at the ship herself. Then he rushes towards the bowsprit. Perhaps _over_ emboldened by the touch of her lips to his, he presses his chest against her back. She stiffens for a moment before her head falls back on his shoulder, if only so she can get a good look at him, before she turns back towards the sea.

"Anything yet?" he says.

"Nope, not in the last like seven minutes and forty-three seconds since we left."

He laughs. "You Duodenarians and your obsession with time."

"You Neverbeasts and your obsession with _eternity_."

He laughs harder, nudges his boot between both of hers. He can feel her tense a moment, then relax, then tense again, as though she's having a wicked, silent debate. It occurs to him, then, that he's behaving rather ungentlemanly, especially when she shifts, and her lower back brushes lightly over the front of his trousers. He leans back, and looks down, even though she can't see him.

"Pardon me, love," he says, near to her ear. "I'm afraid you're right. I'm a Neverbeast of the highest order."

She's silent for a moment before she answers, genuinely, "No you're not."

Killian's not quite sure what to say. He thinks on his past, thinks on the hook he bears for a hand, the number of men and women's he's dispatched with the carefully sharpened tip. He thinks of the blood he's seen, the blood he's borne, and then looks down to see goodness personified telling him he's not a monster.

The contradiction is overbearing. Her grumbles not but half a response and returns to the helm. He shakes the tension from his legs when he grasps the wheel, keep them steady on the current. He's never been one to fear death, but he's no desire to see the _Jolly_ lost to the center – to what the residents of the realm refer to as the Gear – of the Bay's inimitable gyre. He can't quite see the current, but he can feel it beneath his feet, can hear it in the crackle of water against the hull.

They sail on for at least an hour more, chasing the darkness as the sun turns counterclockwise about Duodenary, they following the current clockwise. They pass from Duo Six to Duo Five, all while Emma stands tirelessly at the end of the ship. She watches, and she waits. He imagines he'd have a great deal of trouble finding his focus, what with the siren's hair fluttering through the wind, bearing the salt spray like she was borne of the Pelagy. But there's an untenable rush that accompanies the speeds of the great current, and he finds his mind falling blank of all else but the quiet, creaking language the _Jolly_ speaks to him out on the prow.

"Killian!" she shouts, after some time, when they begin their approach to Duo Four. He whispers to the ship, compels her to keep steady while he bounds to the bowsprit. Emma turns, and here on the edge of twilight, standing above him, and framed by the war between starlight and sunlight, he's quite certain he's never seen treasure before, never seen gemstones, no gold or diamonds, no beauty at all except for the turn of her smile, the glitter in her eyes. He forgets their purpose for a long, stuttered moment, grinning freely up at her. The humidity in the three o'clock is typically something of a nuisance, but it emphasizes the sharp smell of palm and pine, and of the faint whiff of indeterminate spices Swan seems to carry on her skin.

"Killian," she repeats. She reaches down to steady herself on his shoulder as she steps on the deck. "You alright?"

"Aye, love. Never better."

She hums, regarding him with an unreadable expression before she points to land.

"Here," she says.

He nods, and turns back to the bow. "Let's weigh anchor, then."

"Are you sure?"

He throws a look over his shoulder as he climbs the quarterdeck. "Are _you_ sure? It's your judgment we're trusting, darling."

"Really?"

Killian stops, all at once finding her endearing and exasperating. He towers over her, standing astride a flight of stairs. She looks up at him, uncertain. The smile drops from his face, and he wonders –

"Now who was it that convinced you to be so unsure of yourself?"

She looks down at her feet, and something rises in his chest, not unlike the bile that accompanies a night of reckless drinking. But this settles, burning, somewhere near his sternum. His fingers curl tightly around his belt, and his sword suddenly feels a little heavier at his side.

"Perhaps we should quest for revenge first."

Emma laughs, then, quiet, but fierce. She looks back up at him, quirks a delicate brow, and he wonders, or hopes rather, that this particular ship has already sailed straight to hell.

"Save the world now," she says. "Tragic story time later."

Killian concedes, if only because she gives him a sharp look when he opens his mouth. So he silently begs the _Jolly Roger_ to do up her sails as quickly as she can. The ship creaks and sways, but gives no lip, and he watches as the ropes do themselves up in spectacular fashion. The anchor he saves for last, allowing her to drift a while longer, in towards the shore, before he pulls a hefty lever, and the sail falls with a muted splash into the water. He waits for the telltale thud, the very same he feels down in his bones every time the anchor drops into the seafloor, and when it does, the ship drifts a bit more, before it lurches to a stop.

"There's a good girl," he says, quietly, down at the wood beneath his feet.

The flag atop the mainmast flutters in reply, and he returns to the quarterdeck, where Emma watches out over the railing. Killian stops at her side, perhaps closer than he should dare, for she looks warily up at him. Not for the first time, he feels as though he's been plunged in unfamiliar waters. Their kiss, shared hardly an hour ago – he can still taste her on his tongue, can still feel the pressure of her lips against his. But now, she seems rather distant, if not fearful, as she fiddles with her fingers, tugs at her hair. So, silently, he shuffles away, and looks out at the land on the horizon.

"Where are we, then?" he says.

He feels her tense beside him. "Duo Two."

"And this is the source of whatever magic is fouling up the Rise?"

Emma frowns, scratches compulsively at her wrist. "I don't think so. Duo Two is nothing but forests and lakes. A few towns here and there. We use it for wood and as sort of a…reserve water supply. Several of the Lordships take their holidays there."

"Do your parents?" He stops and thinks for a moment. "Assuming they're still alive, I mean."

She tilts her head. "Yeah. Yeah, they're still alive."

 _Unlike yours_ , are her unspoken words. Not that it's difficult to figure out, given that he's told her how old he is.

"And no, to the vacation thing," she says. "I can't remember the last time they took a holiday. They just hang around Twelve all the time."

"How dreadfully dull."

She smiles, then, and Killian counts it as a victory, shuffling just that bit closer. When she looks up at him, now, she's wary still, but smiling. Though it's only faint, he grins back. Perhaps he's giving himself away. But then again, he's only one life to live.

"Just like Duo Two, honestly," she says. "I'm kind of surprised this is where time is all…" She gestures, searching, before, "… _wonky_."

" _Wonky_ ," he repeats, mostly to himself. Then, "Dull, is it?"

"Dreadfully," she parrots, and he smiles.

"Ah, but perhaps the perfect, nondescript location in which to stage a bit of a coup."

"A coup?"

"What is any nefarious plan, but a struggle for power?"

Emma's nostrils flare, and she turns to regard him. Here on the silent seas, outside of the current, the water is a bit like glass. He's reminded of the night of the Rise, when up was down, when he first lost himself in the sound of her voice, and in the way the water seems to respond to her. Unlike that night, there's no ripple in the waves, no mourning beyond the fear she seems to carry from one dawn to the next. They're anchored barely a mile offshore, outside of the range of the young, tender grasses that grow just beneath the surface. She sits aside the bowsprit now, and he wonders if she's growing uncomfortable, what with the way she shifts, but when he'd offered her the captain's cabin, and he the bunks below deck, she refused.

Now, they commiserate beneath the stars. Or above the stars. It could rightly be that they're hanging from the sky, and he wouldn't know the difference.

"But where is it coming in?" she wonders aloud. She chews on her thumb, pausing only to brush her hair over her shoulder again and again. It's as stubborn as she, it would seem. He would brush it away, but she seems lost in thought. They can straddle the fine line they're walking on the morrow.

"A river?" he guesses, when she grows silent.

She shakes her head. "There aren't any rivers. There's only the one harbor on miles of coastline."

"Who's the Lordship?"

Emma wrinkles her nose, then. She sighs, and flops rather unceremoniously back on the bowsprit. Only now does it occur to him to ask whether she spent much of her youth aboard ships. After all, she displays a marvelous ability to act as if she's not perched rather precariously, several dozen hands above the sea. But his curiosity will have to wait until later. She's a story on her tongue, and an expectant waggle of her brow sets her talking.

"Regina," Emma says. "She used to want to kill me, then she actually kind of helped save me at one point. I think she's sort of neutral on me now." She pauses, and shrugs as she plays with the ties on the V of her shirt. "She and Robin are the Lordship, now. I'm honestly surprised she doesn't mind being stuck out in the middle of nowhere all the time."

She looks up at him, and the expression on his face must give him away, because she laughs so hard that he compulsively draws her closer, fearing a tumble into the shallow waters below.

"That didn't make any sense, did it," she says.

"Your business is your own, darling," he answers. "Although, I can't imagine befriending the woman who tried to kill me. Or you."

 _Especially_ you, he thinks.

"Like I said, it's a long story. Love, death, revenge."

Killian hums. "Sounds familiar."

She hums back, and then turns until her hip rests against the gunwale, looking up at him until he does the same, facing her with his arms crossed over his chest. He watches her, waits, suspects she has something to say, but doesn't quite know how to say it. Typically, he might help her along. After all, he is a man of many words, she a woman of few. But the expression in her eyes is fathomless, incomprehensible. So he waits, chewing thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek.

"Does it?" she says, after some time. "Sound familiar?"

"Aye," he answers, truthfully. "Painfully so."

She nods in understanding, and that seems to be the end of it. He longs to know, to ask what it is – _who_ it is, perhaps – that plagues her. But she twists away from him, and walks towards the center of the deck.

"It's too early to go to sleep," she says.

Killian follows her, until he stands at her side, looking up at the stars. "You can do whatever you wish, Swan. If you like, we can row to shore, set up camp on land."

She shakes her head. "I'd rather sleep on the water, row down in the morning."

He nods, and tries not to be so very obvious about watching her. Then again, she appears to be watching him, so he figures turnabout is fair play. They remain silent, together, for a while, at least until the air chills with the onset of midnight, and she starts to rub at her arms.

"Still too early for sleep?" he says.

"It's been like ten minutes."

He laughs, softly. "How would you like to climb to the fighting top, eh, Swan?"

* * *

 _How would you like to climb to the fighting top_ , he thinks to himself, derisively, when they reach the top of the mast. It is, of course, meant for but one man or woman, so he must seem either a fool or a lech. There is no configuration of two human bodies that could have them resting comfortably without touching.

"Eh," he says, scratching beneath his ears. "Sorry, love. I don't exactly frequent the fighting top." He pauses, then, and looks up at the sky, where, with the sails and masts serving as less of a hindrance, it seems an endless sea of stars. "I can go – "

"No," she says, rather quickly, loudly, startling him where he stands, cramped against one side of the nest. Then, quieter, rubbing compulsively at her elbow, "No, that's okay. I mean, we've already…"

"Aye," he says, when she falls silent. "We've already."

It takes some maneuvering, but he manages to sit with his back against the mast, and she in front of him. She's leaning forward, her feet dangling over the edge. As many times as he's climbed these ropes and sails, it turns his stomach to watch her swing her feet. So he cranes his neck instead, and watches a stray meteor or two streak across the sky. There are several moments, of course, during which he considers talking, asking her about her family, about her past. But he senses he ought to remain quiet. Either she'll talk or she won't. Meanwhile, he can breathe in the air, and soak in the silence, that latter of which he's not had much since arriving in Duodenary some months ago.

Emma doesn't seem keen to speak, either. Or, at least, not in words. She's so quiet and still that, when he closes his eyes to listen to the waves below, he nearly forgets she's there, or as close to forgetting she's there as he'll ever be.

"Tell me about Neverland," she says, and he looks down, peeks open one eye. She's still looking up and away, hair spilling down her back. As the hour grows later, the starlight grows brighter, and it seems as though she's made from the dust of the heavens, sparkling on her skin, in her hair, in her eyes when she peers over her shoulder.

"What do you want to know?"

Emma turns back to watch her feet as they swing. "Is their king really just a boy?"

Killian scoffs. "Pan is no king, love. And he's certainly no boy. He merely wears the face of a child."

"Why?"

He shrugs. "Youth. Power. Why does anyone want either?"

She scoots back a bit, and turns until she's leaning against his leg, and he finds himself holding his breath, waiting for her to realize what she's doing. But she's either oblivious, or doesn't care, crossing her arms over her chest when she says –

"Don't _you_ want youth and power?"

"Darling, I've had more than enough of both. Even with centuries behind me, I have years to live, and no master above me. I'm content."

"Centuries," she echoes. "Must be weird, to have lived so long, and be so young."

He shrugs, and muses, "One of the perks of Duodenary, I find, is that I don't have much to explain when I confess my age."

Emma laughs, and leans harder against his leg, until she's very nearly sitting between his thighs. Rather involuntarily, he reaches up to steady her with a hand on her shoulder. But it's with this touch that she seems to realize where she is, how she's sitting, seizing up until he removes his hand. She doesn't move, though, either too frightened or too proud or too _something_ to leave. Killian's sure he's blue in the face when something in her eyes seems to knock loose, and she leans, ever so carefully, until her side is nuzzled against his chest, her legs beneath one of his. She breathes – _he_ breathes, for that matter – and he can hear her counting to twelve under her breath.

"What are we doing?" she says, quietly.

Not one to hedge, he remains silent for a moment while he considers her question. What _are_ they doing? Once consumed by revenge, lost in the vagueness and haze surrounding the centuries in Neverland, now living in a realm shrouded in shadows, protected by powerful Lordships and beholden to strange, magical accords. He can hardly recall Milah's face, the sound of her voice. He'd once returned to the Enchanted Forest, only to find that the mantle of Darkness had been rescinded by the gods. Returning to Neverland, then, only to find himself bobbing on saline seas the likes of which he'd never seen before. Here in Duodenary, once again reliant on his own wits to make a living in a new realm, trying to find a way back, at least until…

 _Until Emma._

And now, here he lies, with a woman who is not his first and only lover. He's certainly half in love with her already, but it feels different. Before, he'd been consumed by it, restless, always wanting more, exhilarated by the touch of her hand, by the press of her lips, by the winding of her body around his.

Now, with Emma, it's quiet, a stray comfort, as though he were caught drifting in unknown waters, and given a compass, a purpose. The way he feels when he looks at her, it settles warmly in his chest. He finds himself wondering where to draw the line between love and fondness and lust, between the _longing_ for love that he's felt for so long, and the fear that it may never return. Poets he'd met in realms afar had called it saudade, and at last, the heavy, undying yearning in his heart seems to dissipate.

 _I want you_ , he thinks. After all his deliberation, it's truly as simply as that. He considers whether or not he should say this aloud, whether or not it would offend the unknown burden that she carries.

Then –

"I… _want_ you," she says.

He laughs, rather humorless. "You really are a sorceress, aren't you?" Before she can answer in her confusion, he reaches up to caress her face with the backs of his fingers.

"I want you too, of course," he says, in case it isn't terribly obvious.

"I don't even…" She trails off, sounding frustrated, a little fearful, a lot nonplussed. "I don't even _know_ you. Except that…I know you?"

He smiles, faintly, "We've had this conversation before today."

"I just don't get it."

"What about fate don't you get?"

She frowns. "Fate's kind of a heavy word to be throwing around."

Killian shifts in place, until he can get a good look at her. He turns her chin with his hook, until she's looking him in the eye. "Emma, love, I came to this realm entirely by accident. You come to me on a whim, for help you never truly intended to ask for, when, by most laws of nature, we shouldn't even exist at the same time." He quiets, leaning forward, speaking with hardly more than whispers. "And when you kiss me, you feel as though you know me, as though you always have, and always will. Consider these, and then tell me fate had no hand."

She watches him for a while, until his arm grows sore, and he pulls his hook from his face. Until his back twinges as well, and he leans back. She turns her head from side to side before she leans forward, her hand laying gently against his face. When she kisses him, it's familiar and unfamiliar all at once. It's chaste, but meaningful, and she's a stubborn furrow to her brow when she pulls back.

"I can do what I want," she says.

He smiles. "Of that I have no doubt."

"Fate can try and stop me, or push me."

"She's merely presented the opportunity, Swan. What shall you do with it?"

She hums, and shifts until she's on her knees before him. His heart rises in his throat when she plants both hands on his shoulders, and pushes until she's standing. Then –

"Sleep," she answers.

Killian sighs, squirming in place until he can hear her stalking across the deck down below. He leans over the edge of the top, says –

"You take the captain's cabin, love, down beneath the quarter."

"You sure?" she says, although she's already halfway down the ladder.

"Whatever you want," he says, although he doubts she hears him, the hatch shutting above her with a quiet thud.

Killian laughs, he can't help it, and sets about climbing down the mast. When he passes over the slats above his cabin, he thinks he most probably imagines the sound of rustling, like clothing sliding off of flesh. He takes up Emma's habit, then, and counts to twelve before he too climbs below deck, to have perhaps the most restless sleep of his life.

* * *

Come morning, they row to shore. Killian's never before had the fortune to dock at this Duo before. Only, of course, as Emma says, there's only one harbor. He wonders if he's ever sailed by it before, giving the trees only a passing glance before turning to face the sea. Considering the stark, white, glittering beaches, he doubts it. This is exactly the sort of paradise his men would bribe him to visit. When they step from the skiff, now anchored alongside a stretch of fluted corals, Emma stops to throw her boots and socks rather unceremoniously over her shoulder.

"Holy shit," she says, wriggling her toes. He watches her from further up the beach, where the water washes gently over his shoes, pulling away the muck they'd encountered between the shallow waters and landfall.

"It feels like clouds," she continues, waxing poetic for a moment about their glorious surroundings. He'd share the sentiment, were he not experiencing a rather sudden and painful nostalgia for the taste of her lips.

"Swan," he says. He stops to clear his through when nothing but gravel falls from his mouth. "We ought to head inland."

"Oh."

She sounds disappointed, like a child called in for the sake of the storm. He's amused once more, and wonders how many different emotions it's possible to experience in the span of time it takes the woman to hop back into her socks and shoes.

He snorts as they cross the tree line. Unlike the crowded underbrush of Neverland, the vegetation here is spread thin on the ground. Needles – red and green and blue, some purple, some clear, looking like delicate ice crystals – litter the ground, crunching loudly underfoot. Creatures of all sorts hover overhead. The birds grow quiet at their approach. Light eyes set in dark fur crawl on eight legs back up the crooked trees. It's both charming and foreboding, and Killian shifts closer to his companion.

Or…at least he tries. When he expects his hook to brush over her fingers, he swipes through nothing but air. He turns, and finds her cooing at a herd of white stags, no taller than his knees.

"Come now, darling," he says, looking warily over his shoulder before he stands behind her, watching the red-beaded eyes of the stags turn heavily upon him as he sidles closer behind her. "We mustn't linger."

She scoffs. "Just give me a second, I want to pet the animals."

He huffs in turn. "Are you a grown woman with magic, or are you a child?"

Emma laughs, gives one of the creatures one last pat before she rises to her feet, steadying himself by his hook. That alone is enough to throw him off balance, the casual touch, but she pushes on –

"Never thought you'd be agreeing with my father."

"I'll tell him he's more intelligent than I by spades if you agree to leave the rabid beasts behind."

Emma looks casually amused at his behest, but she complies. They put several strides between themselves and the stags before he lets out a relieved breath.

"Funny," she says. "I had you pegged for an animal lover."

" _Sea_ animals, love," he answers, looking over his shoulder. "The creatures of these forests and plains haven't a bloody clue what you're saying."

"What _you're_ saying," she counters.

He merely quirks a brow in reply.

"We really ought to have a word for that."

"A word for what?"

"For people who can be understood by the creatures in the sea."

Killian stops a moment, at which she regards him, rather mischievously, over her shoulder.

" _People_ ," he echoes. "As if there are more than one."

"Not _many_ more than one."

Emma continues on, and he doubles his strides until he's caught up with her, looking down at her profile as they walk. At least, until he nearly trips over the roots of an ancient beech tree. He glares at it for a moment before he concedes with a huff, and walks behind her.

"So this… _power_. Why do I have it?"

She shrugs. "Why can anyone do anything?"

Killian sighs, affectedly.

"Seriously, though, who knows, especially given that you weren't born here." She pauses to duck under some low hanging branches, and holds them up for him to follow, before she adds, genuinely curious, "Weren't you wondering why the magic fetched such a good price? Especially considering most animals – or the younger ones, anyway – jump at the chance to start their life over again, memories intact."

He grumbles good-naturedly.

"Or did you really think you were that singularly charming?"

Killian laughs, then, despite himself. "How am I to know the ins and outs of this realm, eh, Swan?"

She laughs too, but doesn't answer. They walk, he behind her – as seems to be their pattern – for a good while before something occurs to him.

"And the creatures on land understand _you_ ," he says, accusingly. "How ironic."

Emma smiles –

"Yep."

– and continues on her way.


	4. Part Four

Summary: Intending to return to Neverland after his quest for revenge comes to an abrupt end, Killian Jones finds himself in Duodenary, a realm whose existence allows Neverland, and the people therein, to live forever. After months of trying and failing to find a way to go home, a princess comes looking to him for help.

Notes: Thanks again to all who read/reviewed/favorited/followed! I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Part Five goes up on Sunday.

* * *

They're wading through the pitch of night before they reach the castle. By his own winning luck, the Lady of Duo Twelve possesses quite the memory for maps. And though he knows the sea – the Bay and several of the harbors, the creatures they house and the people they support – he's not taken the same care with the lands of Duodenary. So he's content to follow her lead until they reach a stone edifice that crawls in crooked stops and starts towards the sky. It's all oak and marble, slate roof sloping sharply back towards the ground. It glitters in the wan light, and when they pass into the clearing that lay before it, Killian turns his head back to gaze at the sky. The stars here are different than on the sea, he notes, shining down on them in unfamiliar patterns, with unfamiliar colors.

"The curvature of this realm is absurd, Swan," he says, as they trudge towards the castle doors. "The constellations shift with only a few dozen nautical miles."

Emma scoffs. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Merely an observation."

She hums, but doesn't answer, as they come to the castle doors. There's a knocker in the center, forged from steel, filigreed with silver, or so it appears. It's decorated with apples, curiously enough. Emma reaches up, and takes it in hand, but she seems to hesitate, shifting back and forth on her feet.

"No time like the present, eh, love?" he says.

"It's _really_ late."

"A proper excuse not to talk to the woman who tried to kill you."

She rolls her eyes. "I _forgave_ her, remember? She's just…she's scary, okay? I can't imagine what she's like at one in the morning."

"No worse than you when you wake up, I should think."

Emma smacks him in the chest, and he nudges back. She scowls up at him, and he smiles down at her, at least until the doors before them groan, and swing open.

"It's insulting that you would think I wouldn't know you were coming," the Lady at the door says, matter-of-fact. She looks alert, dressed in red, with similarly adorned lips. Her stature is harsh, her hair is dark, and the way she favors her right foot suggests irritated boredom. But still, Killian knows a well-meaning heart when he sees one, and looks to find its gentle counterpart standing behind her, a man dressed in the colors of the forest around them.

"Sorry, Regina." Emma twists her hands, and Killian quirks a brow when she leans to one side until she's nearly pressed against him. "I know it's late, but – "

" – there's something wrong, I know," Regina says, not unkindly. "We've been waiting for you since we put Roland to bed."

"The crystal ball," the man says, and looks to Emma, smiling fondly, with familiarity. "Just the night before, we saw the state of the Rise. We thought to contact you, but you and your companion were already headed our way."

Regina nods, and beckons them in –

"So we can talk inside, like civilized people."

"I'll be sure to never speak to you outside again, my love," Robin says.

"Oh, hush."

– and out of the dark.

"Roland is his son," Emma says, quietly, as they follow the Lady and Lord through the foyer and back into the bowels of the castle. They trail behind when Emma tugs on his hook, lingering just out of earshot.

"His mother died…" She says, then pauses, wrinkles her nose. "…in a skirmish Regina started, actually."

Killian frowns.

"You're _all_ quite the forgiving lot, aren't you?" he whispers.

"Again, it's a long story."

"You and your stories could fill a library, darling."

Emma rolls her eyes, and hurries ahead of him, tugging on his hook as though _he_ were the one to pull them behind in the first place. When they're closer, she nudges his shoulder, gesturing vaguely at the man ahead of them.

"That's Robin Hood, by the way," she says.

"Ah," he answers, just as quiet, and raises his voice to introduce himself, as a bit of an afterthought, "I'm Killian – "

"Jones," Robin finishes, smiling back over his shoulder. "Also Captain Hook. Regina told me."

"Well," Killian chuffs. "It's awfully convenient to know everything, I'd imagine."

"Or to be _married_ to someone who knows everything. I'm only told what I need to know."

Regina rolls her eyes at her Lord's joke, and leads the lot of them into a grand salon at the three o'clock wall. The windows are cracked open, letting the fresh breeze flow through. Even so, the fire roars hot, chasing away any thought of chill. The fireplace is something out of a storybook, the soft stone carved into the likeness of animals of all sorts. They're situated like the roots of a tree, arching up and over the mouth of the fire, into the central figure of a tree, whose branches arch up and out of the stone itself, leaves of metal and fruit of gemstones hanging from heavily from the sculpture. These too, it seems, are apples, and Killian wonders briefly at the choice of theme, before her Ladyship bids they sit on couches clothed with woven cotton.

"So," Regina says, when they settle in front of the fire, gesturing between he and Emma. "How did _this_ happen?"

Killian blushes. "Nothing's _happened_ , my Lady."

Robin shifts in place beside Regina, and smiles down at his hands, while Regina arches a pert brow.

"Well, first, _that_ answers a question I didn't ask. Second, I _mean_ , why are you working together?"

Emma shrugs. "He's an expert wrangler of magical creatures. Never seen anyone like him. I thought, if he saw the Rise, he might know something I didn't might be able to tell _why_ they're leaving in droves. I know magic, but I don't know much about animals, to be honest."

Regina nods, and Killian shifts restlessly beneath the weight of the compliment, digging into the skin beneath his ear with his fingers. The Lady looks to him, then, and quite suddenly, he feels as though he should sit a bit straighter. He slouches instead, plants his feet on the stone floor.

"And what, exactly, have you learned?"

"Not much, your Ladyship," he says. "Only, the spirits of this realm are, for lack of a better word, quite spirited. Those in the Rise seem tired, much more so than I would expect, given they're off to a creature's paradise."

 _And a human's hell_ , he thinks, though he refrains from saying it aloud.

"I'm not sure if this is somehow connected," Robin says, "but we've been dealing with a problem of our own, of sorts. The trees in the forest are…dying."

The Lord looks positively mournful, then, and over _trees_ , of all things. Then again – and Killian scratches compulsively at his beard – he thinks of the kelp growing mighty and tall at the bottom of the coastal seas, imagines it falling barren and lifeless. His gut twists.

"Dying?" Emma echoes.

"Yes. It started in spots. But now it's progressing in a sort of a path. I haven't had much time to follow it. The annual hunts are starting in the towns." At Killian's vacant expression, Robin elaborates. "Yearly festivities, of a sort, a celebration of the wood. I suppose I could postpone them, but then again, no better way to kill the mood than to tell the people the object of their celebration appears to be falling apart."

Emma seems distressed, and despite their audience, Killian nudges at her fingers with his, and to his surprise, she takes a hold of them, tight. The Lord and Lady hardly blink an eye.

"When did this start?" Emma says.

"As far as I can tell, exactly three weeks ago," Robin answers.

Emma swears, and leans back against the couch. She rubs at her eyes, and her shoulders slope, bearing days and days' worth of sleeplessness.

"I'm guessing this is when the Rise began to change," Regina observes.

Emma nods. "Yep."

"So what does this mean?" Killian says. "That this foul magic, whatever it may be, has infected all of Duodenary?"

Emma turns to him, clutches tighter at his fingers. "Or is just beginning to." She pauses, then, resting her chin in her other hand, and scratching at her jaw, before she says, looking hard down at the floor. "But why Duo Two? I mean, why would _whatever_ the hell is going on concentrate here?"

Robin laughs, not unkindly, and looks fondly out the window. "There's a reason that there aren't many who choose to live here, Emma. There's a peculiar sorcery, here. Most of the magical creatures dwell in the sea. But here in Two…" He looks back at them, a warm twinkle in his eyes. "…it's in the trees. In their roots, stretching further down than even any miners can reach."

"He's right," Regina says. "There are rumors that the time from Neverland travels here first, before seeping out to sea in the groundwater. _Just_ rumors, of course, but maybe there's something to it."

Emma sighs. "So if we can't find what's wrong…"

"It's possible Duo Two will be the first to suffer."

The lot of them sit in silence for a moment. The wind whistling in through the windows snaps at the fire, and plays with the false flora that hangs above them. They stare grimly as the floor, before Regina says, rather suddenly –

"I think you should follow the path."

Emma frowns. "What?"

"If Robin's instincts are correct, which they usually are – "

"Thanks, love," Robin says, quietly, at which Regina squirms, as though she hadn't been married to his Lordship for four years, as Emma had told him.

" – then it leads somewhere."

" _Somewhere,_ like something that will be helpful?" Emma says. "Or _somewhere_ like that time you tricked my father's Naval officers into sailing through a nest of krakens?"

Killian nearly chokes on aborted laughter. Regina rolls her eyes, though he knows enough about burying guilt and shame to see the tender yearning for forgiveness just underneath. The four of them fall silent once more, if only for a moment, Robin's hand falling over the Lady's. Killian spares a glance at Emma, who promptly looks away, takes a deep breath, and says –

"Will you come with us?"

At that, Regina does indeed look sorry, her eyes softening a touch. Killian wonders how a pair can go from murderous intent to vague fondness. Then again, he wonders how a man can go from villainous pirate to an aid in a quest to save a realm. Perhaps he and Regina aren't so different after all, snagged by a pure heart, driven by dogged determination.

"I'm sorry, Emma," Regina says. "We're leaving before sun up tomorrow morning to start the tour of the towns. For the hunt. It's more for morale than anything else – "

"Although I'm hoping to participate this year," Robin interjects.

" – and it would be strange if I weren't there. The people have a hard enough time looking at me like I'm not about to set them on fire."

"I mean," Emma says, "that's pretty fair."

To Killian's never-ending surprise, Regina smiles, though it's wrought with a fair bit of self-deprecation. She nods, and stands from her seat, followed quickly by Robin, then by Killian himself. Emma is a bit slower to rise, but there's a thoughtful expression on her face as she stares unseeing at the fire.

"So this path, then," she wonders aloud. "Where does it start?"

Robin points out the windows. "Straight towards the three o'clock. It's at its worse up here, but then it seems to taper off. It may be difficult to follow at times, but I imagine your magic will aid you there."

"But for the night," Regina says. "You should rest here."

Emma shifts on her feet. "You sure?"

"Of course. We have enough empty rooms to house a small village." The Lady grows thoughtful, then, and turns to the Lord. They share in a silent conversation, and Killian has the sudden urge to avert his eyes. "In fact, we've done that before, when the hurricanes off Clockwork Bay work their way up here."

Robin smiles, even as Emma laughs. "Now _that_ sounds like a party."

"Point is," his Lordship says. "We have plenty of room. Emma, you're free to choose a wing at your leisure. I take it you're still familiar with the layout of the castle?"

Emma shrugs. "For the most part."

"We'll likely be gone before you get up," Regina says. "I'm sorry you didn't get to see Roland. He'll be sorry too."

She makes as though she's about to leave, then, but she hesitates. Killian watches her, and Emma, then back again as the Lady shuffles forward, and lays her hand on Emma's shoulder. "If you need anything…find a mirror. I'll carry one with me."

Killian looks at Robin, who looks back at him with a soft smile, as though he's borne witness to this halting tenderness before. Hardly a moment passes, though, before the Lady clears her throat, and retreats to the corner of the room, where a primly arched passageway – decorated with stone carved in the likeness of ivy and tallgrass – leads elsewhere.

"We'll ask the chefs to leave breakfast for you," Robin says, at which Emma nods her thanks, before the Lord and Lady disappear, leaving them alone with the dying fire.

"Killian."

"Swan?"

She looks up at him, and he's sure he's never seen anyone so weary. He longs to take his hand with hers once more, but she seems shuttered, and so he refrains.

"Everything is dying," she says. "What if I can't stop it?"

"Emma, love…" He tilts his head, and smiles as encouragingly as he can manage, here in the dead of night, where they both sway tiredly on their feet. "I've yet to see you fail."

To his relief, she smiles up at him.

* * *

It's with a heavy heart, though, that Emma climbs the stairs once all has been said, and once the Lord and Lady alike have bid them farewell. Emma chooses rooms in the midnight wing, two just across the hall from one another. They're exhausted, the both of them, though Killian wonders at how much sleep they'll actually manage.

"Will you wake me when you get up?" Emma says, when they stand with their backs to their respective doors, eyeing one another across the meager space in the winding hallway. "I'm not exactly a morning person."

He smiles wanly, nods at her request. "As you wish."

She seems to hesitate, then, hand reaching behind to fiddle with the handle on the door. Killian watches her intently, wondering if she'll ask what he's too afraid to wish for, what he's longed to feel again since she told him that she wanted him astride the bowsprit of the _Jolly Roger_. It's wishful thinking at best, though, and she bids him a quiet goodnight before she slips behind the door. He sighs, and wastes no time doing the same.

He _does_ however, waste time removing his clothes. Though the windows are open against a pleasant breeze, and the silks and cottons on the bed appear freshly laundered, soft and welcoming, he almost doesn't _want_ to sleep, wondering when the journey will end, when he'll have to watch her walk away.

All too soon, though, he's bare, leathers folded and draped on a velvet cushioned chair by an ornate fireplace. He shuffles over to the bed, and climbs beneath the covers, proceeds to gaze at the sloping tray in the ceiling, and the silver chandelier as it tinkles lightly in the breeze. Though he's no hope but to rest, wide awake, he still closes his eyes, and listens. To the nocturnal critters that scrabble up the walls of the castle, to the birds cooing softly in the canopy below, and to the creak of his door as it –

"Swan?" he says, rising where he lies, heart leaping in his throat.

"Yeah," she says, as she tiptoes across the roughhewn floors. He breathes out a sigh, and tucks his blunted wrist beneath the sheets. "Sorry."

"It's alright," he says. She comes to stand at his bedside, silken nightdress ruffling at her knees. She chews thoughtfully at her thumbnail, eyes wandering down his chest, at which point he's reminded of his nakedness beneath the sheets.

"You're naked, aren't you," she observes aloud.

"As the day I was born, I imagine."

She hums. "Do you want to put something on before I get in?"

Killian laughs, softly, even as he shuffles over on the bed, and Emma blushes.

"Sorry," she says, again. "I'm tired and I feel like my head's on backwards." She pauses then, and fiddles with the hair draping freely down over her shoulders. "Can I sleep in your bed with you?"

He considers her for a moment. Despite the fact that he's already compulsively made room for her, he wonders if it's the best idea, not only for her, but for him. Though he'd walled it off many years ago, his heart is still fragile, and more and more exposed the longer he stays with her. He imagines how holding her in his arms could crumble the last of his defenses. But it is what he wanted, what he _desired_ so fiercely when she told him goodnight barely an hour ago, and disappeared behind her door.

"Aye," he says, before she can doubt whether he wants her, like he told her he did. "Aye, love, whatever you need."

Though she lifts her knee and balances on the bed, steadying herself on his shoulder, she still hesitates.

"What about what _you_ need?" she says.

"Emma, if it were my choice, we never would have parted in the hallway."

She smiles as she clambers up onto the bed, careful not to lift the covers over his hips as she slides down in beside him. She perches on her elbow as he wriggles back down to rest on his pillow, so he can look back up at her, and twirl the tangled strands of her hair around his fingers.

"Well, why didn't you say anything?" she says, still smiling. "We could already be asleep."

Killian shakes his head. "You're impossible."

"You _love_ it," she accuses.

He doesn't deny it, only beckons her closer, entreats her to lay her head on his chest. Breathing deeply when she does, he watches as she pulls herself closer still, rising and falling with him, her hand laying gently over his belly. Though he's no saint, he only has to count to twelve to will away the blood pooling down between his legs. He wonders if Emma feels the same, if her skin is flushed, if her toes are curling the way his are while she flexes her fingers against his skin. But she must have a better poker face than he, for she only shifts to make herself more comfortable, to tuck one of her feet between his.

"Will you do something for me?" she says, once she's settled. Killian turns his face against the top of her head and nods.

"Aye."

"Will you tell me a story?"

He huffs against her hairline, presses a smile into her temples.

"About what?" he says.

"I don't know…about you? When you were young."

He chews on his lips, worries the rings around his fingers. For a long while, longer than he thinks is polite, he thinks on his younger days. He doesn't recall much before his father sold he and his brother to an unkindly master. Afterwards…there's nothing that would lull her to sleep. But then he thinks rather fondly of his brother, of the languages he can speak, of the sense of duty and honor they'd instilled, with their rank and order and –

"Did I ever tell you I was a sailor in the Royal Navy?"

Emma laughs, as he thought she might. "Uh, _no_. Seriously?"

"Aye. Lead there by my brother, a pigheaded excuse for a man."

Emma curls tighter into his chest. "You had a brother?"

Killian sighs, a knot twisting and twisting in his chest, where all the love and loyalty he held for his only family once lived.

"Indeed," he says. "Liam was a much better man than I. Working harder, longer…he was always convinced there was something more."

"More than what?"

He frowns, realizing he's revealing more than he meant to. But he can hardly help but to answer, especially when her fingers crawl up over his skin, drawing his fingers between her own before she settles them back over his stomach.

"More than the life of a servant."

They're both quiet for a moment before she says, quietly, "What was it like? In the Navy?"

"Bloody awful, at first. Up before the break of dawn. For the first year, I spent more hours in the library than at sea. We – that is, _all_ sailors – were required to have a proficiency of languages, of sciences and history, before we were given our posts. I believe I have a permanent crick in my neck from my hours spent studying."

Emma laughs, though it sounds tired, much more so than before. He turns his head, and catches her eyes falling shut.

"Poor you," she slurs.

"Aye," he answers, softly. "Poor me."

"What else?"

He thinks for a moment, searching his many years for a memory that will rock her to sleep. Then, "My brother and I – once passing our examinations, and being given our posts on the same ship – we were charged with delivering a message to a prince in a land in the southern reaches of our realm, where the sun burned hotter than I'd ever known possible. The valleys were fertile, but the uplands held more sand than droplets of water in the sea."

Emma hums, and her fingers fall slack around his own. Even so, he whispers the tale into her hair – of the tides that swelled like vortices every morning and evening, of dust storms that coated the town entire in a bleak shade of red. And of the people, how he'd stumbled through their mellifluous language, once accidentally trading his bicorn for a lumbering horse of an animal with sloping hills for a back. Not even halfway through the wonders he'd find beside his brother, he drifts to sleep beneath her, for the first time thinking only fondly of his brother, without the souring rage he was certain he'd never shed.

"Goodnight, Swan," he says.

He dreams, as he always does, of half-faded memories. Of Milah and Liam, of the feel of the _Jewel of the Realm_ beneath his feet, when he was a boy. He squirms, caught in nightmares, but when the starlight fades, and the sunrise starts, Emma turns heavier into his side, and from then on, he dreams only of clear, cool seas.

* * *

The morning is an awkward affair, if only because Emma has managed to snarl the blankets around every spare bit of her flesh. He, of course, is used to chilly nights on the water, so when he wakes to the two o'clock sunshine streaming through the open windows, completely bare to the winds, he reminds himself that he's slept through much worse. The rub comes when she tries to rise, and he helps untangle her, despite her protests.

"You sleep as though you're engaged in battle, Swan," Killian says, as he gently pries her foot loose from a loop of fabric. "Do you go through this every morning?"

She grumbles incoherently, which he takes as a _yes_. Once she's loose, he buckles his vest back into place, and dons his coat, swishing it twice for good measure as he makes certain that every toggle is in place, every button twisted to his liking.

"Do you do _that_ every morning?" she says. "Strut around in your clothes like you own the damn place?"

"I beg you to consider which is more mortifying. My strut, or your inability to simply rise from the bed."

She huffs all the way down to the breakfast table.

As Regina and Robin had promised, they're long gone, though the table is covered with all sorts of local fruits, warm breads, and cold meats. Though she's clearly not an early riser, he hides his grin with a yawn when she piles enough food to sustain the both of them throughout the day on her plate, eating in silence as she stares unseeing at the murals on the castle walls. He sits as close beside her as he dares, tries not to recall the sensation of her hair tickling at his nose, of her breath running warm and damp over the hair on his chest, and of the brush of her nightdress between his legs.

"Stags," she says, after a prolonged silence, licking salt away from her lips.

"Pardon?"

"The mural on the wall." She points, looking a little less worse for wear, spine stretching straighter as the hot, sugared drink in her hands appears to do its job. "Those little stags are on it."

He hums. "Right you are. Although it appears they're being hunted."

Emma frowns down at what little is left on her plate, including a bit of meat. She purses her lips and looks up at him. Once again, he finds himself trying _not_ to be amused by the expression on her face, but in such close proximity, he can't hide the smile on his face. To his relief, at least, she smiles back, wanly.

"Not one to look your meal in the eye, eh, Swan?"

"No."

"Time to go?"

"Please."

Given what little they'd come with, it doesn't take long for them to gather their things – only two satchels between them. When they reach the door on their way out, Emma hesitates when the great, oaken passageway swings open. She turns to look up at him, and not for the first time, he finds her expression unreadable.

"What is it, love?"

She chews on her bottom lip, shifts slowly from one foot to the other before she says, haltingly, "Are you sure you still want to do this?"

He frowns. "I made a promise."

"I won't hold you to it."

Killian sighs, and he's careful to watch her face as he shuffles closer. He takes her hand in his, places it gently over his chest where his heart beats, at the moment, for her and her quest.

"But _I_ will," he says. "And not out of a sense of duty. Although I like to think I have a code, I'm doing this because I want to."

She watches him, carefully, before she flexes his fingers, and he can feel her nails scratch lightly at the hair revealed by the deep V in his shirt.

"Okay," she says.

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

She doesn't let go of his hand until the castle disappears behind them, and they're swallowed up by the forest once more. He keeps quiet as she walks, stops and breathes deeply when she lays her hand on a tree here, a shrub there, looking for the path of decay Robin had described to them the evening before. Out on the sea, where the sun rolls along its endless path, Killian keeps decent track of time, decent enough for someone not of this realm, but here in the forest, he feels lost. Or at least he would, were Emma not there to lead him.

"Anything?" he says, when her steps grow longer, when the hesitation falls out of her step.

"I think it's just up ahead."

Sure enough, not even half a league brings them to a bit of a clearing, _only_ a clearing by virtue of the trees before them, laying on their sides. Old, red earth is turned over beside them, pulled up by their ancient roots. A man could _live_ in the resulting caverns, dips in the soil where the trees once drew their water and lifeblood.

"They were _right_ ," Emma breathes, looking sullen. She walks along the edge of the clearing, brow drawing tighter with every dead and dying tree that she finds. "Killian, they're dying. _Everything's_ dying."

Killian steps up behind here, where she's stopped to mourn a sapling, where it bends unnaturally at the trunk. He's close enough that if he takes a deep breath, his chest would brush over her back. Often since he's met her, he wonders if he's too bold, too quick, but she reaches back to curl her fingers around his hook, so he banishes the thought.

"What next, Emma?" he says, right by her ear.

She sighs. "Follow the path."

"Can you feel where it leads?"

She pauses a moment, then, plucking a leaf from the sapling before them. It crumbles to dust in her hand, floating back towards the eight o'clock before it falls to the ground.

"Towards the Bay," she says.

"Towards the Bay," he echoes. They stand together a moment longer before she lets go of his hook, and steps neatly along the path she's set in her mind. Killian looks to the scene of destruction before him, wondering if perhaps the sea faces the same fate, creatures fathoms below the surface suffering the death and decay he sees before him. The thought tugs at the pit of his stomach, and he takes a deep breath before he turns to follow his Swan, back into the heart of the wood.

* * *

"The winds are in rare form this fine morning," Killian says, once they're near to shore.

Emma barely hums in acknowledgment, stepping carefully along the path of decay. The trees creak and groan. Not like the _Jolly Roger_ , which clicks at him in all of her enchanted fits of passion, but like a leaning edifice, made of driftwood. It smells of salt and rot, now that he thinks of it. Even the ground beneath their feet seems to sink, overtaken by red muck. He follows her lead, not trusting his own eyes to wonder. He has to admit, some of the trees and brush around him are downright _despairing_. But, for all that he enjoys a good metaphor, he can't see the trees for the forest, a relatively dull sea of green, one that he can hardly enjoy, given that he's down on the ground, the sky cut into pieces by the canopy.

"I don't know how you can tell where you're going, Swan."

She tosses a curious look over her shoulder. "Can't you feel it?"

"'Fraid I'm not attuned to the forest."

"Follow your nose, then. It reeks like stupidly dead trees."

" _Stupidly_ dead," he echoes.

"Yes, _stupid_. Because, honestly, _how_ did I miss this? You'd think I would know when dark magic is in Duodenary."

Killian frowns, jogs to catch up with her. He nudges her fingers with his, reaches up to curl his fingers over her shoulder.

"You don't have to carry _every_ burden, love. At least, not alone."

She looks at him, and the stubborn press of her lips suggests that she disagrees, that she's prepared to fight him on it. And so he concedes, though he remains close behind. He counts it as a gain, at least, that she doesn't protest when moves to help her over a fallen log or two. Likely _he's_ the one in need of helping. Land feels uneasy beneath his feet, especially that cast in shadows. But he helps her nonetheless, a silent show of support.

It seems hours before the path changes. Trees and trees and _trees_ swirling in his mind, Killian would surely be lost without Emma. All the same, all encased in various stages of rot, needles of all sorts crunching under their feet. He knows, like any good sailor, when they approach the shore, for the trees thin, and the earth underfoot begins to shift, not with muck, but with sand. He perks up, and breathes deep when the sweet tang of salt fills his lungs.

"The Clockwork is close," he says.

She sounds unhappy when she answers, "Yeah."

Killian lengthens his stride, until he trudges beside her. "You seem vexed."

Emma shrugs and sighs all at once, though she too seems heartened when the rush of the waves begins to break through the tree line.

"I was hoping this would be it, that we'd come here and find it."

" _It_ being the source of this decay."

"Yes."

She's quiet until trees give way to sand. He recalls the expression on her face just the day before, marveling at the sand beneath her feet, grinning at the eclectic wildlife. Oh how time does wreak its havoc. Now, he watches as she scowls at the horizon. She twists the fabric of her shirt in her hands, making a mess of the pressed fabric.

"Where does the trail lead?" he asks, quietly.

She doesn't answer, only crouches down to press her fingers against the sand. A faint pulse of magic glows beneath her fingertips, and zips down the beach, into the water.

"Into the Bay," he says.

"Yep."

"How far?"

She presses both hands into the sand, falling onto her knees.

"Now that I can _see_ the decay," she says, quietly, to herself, "I can just…"

Emma flexes her fingers, and longer, brighter trails of magic flow from her hands. Her breathing labors, and Killian shuffles closer, leans down to press his fingers over the base of her spine. She relaxes, or seems to, although moments later, she falls back into his hand, and curses, colorfully enough to set the tips of his ears flaming red.

"What is it?" he says.

"It's in the fucking _Gear_. Whatever it is. We were closer to it out at sea than before we _hiked_ all the way to Regina and Robin's castle."

Killian hums. "Nice to have fine sheets, at least."

She blushes, studiously ignoring him a moment before she says, "If we sail there – "

" – we shan't be sailing back, aye."

She curses, again, and Killian helps her to her feet. She shifts again and again, digging the heels of her boots down into the sand. Her hands return to her shirt, until he's certain she'll have to borrow one of his from one of his chests in the cabin –

 _In the_ cabin _,_ he thinks. He chews on his lips, and thinks on the treasures, there, one in particular…

"You know," he says, and he taps at his chin as he imagines his scheme going into play, on how terribly harebrained it is. Then again, he'd vowed to help the woman beside him. He thinks of how she'd turned in his arms, of how she slept with her mouth open, how her hair tangled beautifully throughout the night. He thinks of how, in slumber, at least as far as he could see, she seemed to revel in a rare bit of peace. Fingers smoothing over his beard, rasping down along his neck, he thinks on how it would be if she were _always_ that peaceful.

And so, possibility of death considered, and thrown casually into the wind, he turns to her, and repeats –

"You know, I think I may have something that will get us where we need to be."

Emma smiles up at him, as though she were just privy to his train of thought. He almost wishes she were. It would save him the trouble of trying to get the gears in his mouth to spin when she looks at him like she could never look away, and be content.

"And what's that?" she says.

"Why, pixie dust, of course."

* * *

"Seriously, though," Emma says, for perhaps the thirteenth time. "Pixie dust?"

"Haven't you heard the stories, love?" he answers, as he rifles through the chests beneath the floorboards of his cabin. It's been some time since he's needed it, and many of his treasures are hidden even far too well for _him_ to find. He cries out, triumphant, when he snatches a familiar pouch of powder.

Emma smiles when she catches the expression on his face, but still wonders, "What stories?"

"Pan? The Lost Boys? Pixies and faeries, fantastical beings of all sorts?"

She shakes her head. "Most of our stories are about dragons and horses…and bears?"

He laughs. "Are you asking me or telling me?"

She throws her hands up in the air. "I don't know, I didn't like stories that much. Why _hear_ a story when you can _live_ a story?"

"Fair point, Swan."

"Just tell me about the stupid dust, already."

Killian huffs, feigning exasperation as he leads her back up on deck. When they stand just beneath the four o'clock sun, he opens the pouch, and innumerable shards of light pour out, great shafts that stretch out into the sky, colors unnameable filling the space between them.

"Pixie dust," he says, "is a _good_ magic. Unlike many that I have seen, it will take us where we need to be, no price to be paid."

"How?" she says, breathless. Killian smiles, and takes her hand with the curve of his hook, entreats her to wriggle her fingers over the light.

"Holy shit, it's _warm_ ," she says. Her fingers dance in the light, and the light dances alongside them, more brilliant than he's ever seen. She too is a good magic, he knows. He wonders if that's why.

" _How_ ," he echoes her earlier question, and she looks up at him. "Why, we'll fly, of course."

"You're kidding."

"Certainly not."

Emma considers him a moment, and he's admittedly disappointed when she doesn't immediately start jumping up and down. Then again, he can't quite picture Emma Swan doing such a thing in his mind.

"We'll have enough for both ways?" she says.

"Of course."

Another moment, and then she smiles. _Smiles_ like he's never seen before, and this must be the equivalent of leaping up and down, for it garners the same reaction. That is, he kisses her, and she kisses back, and while it's little more than a mash of lips and teeth, it still creeps warmly down to his toes.

"So what's the plan?" she says, against his mouth. "We sail along the trail, fly over the current, and into the Gear."

He hums. "Aye. And we find whatever's causing the trouble and put an end to it."

Emma pulls back, though her hands remain in his hair, on his face. "You make it sound so easy."

"One can only hope."

He sets to work. Truth be told, despite the rather sinister, mysterious nature of their quest, Killian feel good, ebullient even, and the ship easily responds.

"Like your Captain in high spirits, eh?"

A stray wind rocks the ship from side to side, which Killian takes as a _yes_.

When the anchor's aweigh, he stands ready at the helm, and turns to Emma.

"Do we have a heading?"

Emma seems to think for a moment, arms crossed over her chest, before she turns to the railing, and sits astride a crate by gunwale. She reaches over, and Killian, helplessly curious, leaves his post to peer over the edge, and down the keel. He watches as she flexes her fingers, and pure, white tendrils of benevolent magic twist down the wood. The ship remains still beneath Emma's touch, and Killian wonders, not for the first time, who the Captain of this journey truly is.

"What are you doing, love?" he asks, quietly.

"You'll see."

And in seconds, he does, the magic erupting when it touches the water, racing along the water, and lighting up a path inwards towards the Gear. It ripples alongside the waves, and despite his misgivings about magic in the past, Killian beams.

"You're bloody brilliant," he says.

She blushes. "Yeah, yeah, there's your heading."

He concedes, and returns to the helm. From then, it's a simple matter to follow along the path. The winds, as he'd said earlier in the day, are in fine form. Though he expects a bit of trouble in the Gear, he perishes the thought until they cross the current of Clockwork Bay, instead electing to watch Emma as she watches the sea creatures in turn. For a portside woman, she'd spent little time at sea, _very_ little in Clockwork Bay. And so it's with considerable delight that she watches the dolphins spin alongside the hull, colored in all hues, dancing seemingly for her pleasure. Flying fish join the parade, and by the time they near the current, he's memorized the sound of her laughter, and the smile she wears when she's _truly_ happy.

"So how do we do this pixie dust thing?"

Killian shrugs. "Sprinkle it on the ship and believe."

She frowns, thoughtful. " _Believe_?"

"Aye. With all your heart. I've told you that this will work, Swan. Now ask yourself, do you believe it?"

"In the dust? Or in you?"

He scratches at his jaw with his hook, to the point of pain, and when he looks up at her from beneath his lashes, she looks awfully pleased with herself.

"Either?"

Emma hums. "The dust…mostly. You? Yes."

His heart swells, and he places the pouch gently in her hand, at which she balks.

"Wait, why am _I_ doing this?"

"You're a magical creature, Swan. I imagine the power of your belief would turn us higher than I ever could."

She sighs, and for a moment, he wonders if she'll refuse. But when he smiles encouragingly at her skepticism, she bites hesitantly at her bottom lip, pinches a bit of the dust out, and throws it up into the sail. Killian holds his breath, and for a second or two –

 _Three and a half_ , she'd likely correct him.

– it seems as if nothing's going to happen. But then, with a huff, she throws out another, this time towards the helm, and the _Jolly Roger_ , she trembles, and begins to rise.

" _There_ you go, Swan!"

She laughs at his glee, and joins him at the helm when the ship gives a mighty, and rises fully from the water. Without the sea beneath dragging at the wood, the ship flies quickly through the air. The wind turns hard into his face, making a mess of his hair, and a tangle of his shirt, as he attempts to steer.

"Where's the path," he shouts, over the racket. Emma seems to snap herself from a daze before the rushes towards the edge. She peers over, carefully, and answers –

"Two o'clock," she answers.

Killian turns the wheel with a heave. They sail faster with the wind just behind them, and he's certain he's bound to blow away when the ship begins to slow, and he feels the water beneath them once more. He breathes a sigh of relief, and drapes himself over the wheel. He smooths his fingers through his hair, or attempts to, before he catches on untenable tangles and gives it up. When he turns to Emma, she's in just as dire straits.

"That was fun until it felt like my face was about to blow off."

He laughs. "Aye."

He and Emma alike rest for a moment before they turn back to the task at hand.

"True to course?" he says.

"Yep. Straight ahead. Or dead ahead." She shrugs, and he thinks on how so simple a gesture can be quite so precious. "I don't really know sailor language."

"Much like regular language, darling, only with much more creative curses."

"So is _arse tainting codfish_ a sailor curse, then?"

Killian blushes, and changes the subject. "How much longer until we reach the end of the line?"

She regards him with a smile before she turns back against the now meager – _bloody godsdamned gyres_ – winds. They're hardly crawling, but she still judges, rather accurately by his accounts, that they're only –

"Eight minutes and eleven seconds away."

"Any inkling as to what awaits?"

She gestures vaguely before she drops her hands and answers, simply, "No."

He laughs, weakly.

"Hopefully nothing that kills us, I guess."

"Aye."

They wait out the last several minutes of their journey in silence. The creatures of the Gear are much like this outside of its boundary, only larger. A whale, bright green, whose baleen shimmers black against the five o'clock sun, breaks through the water just behind them, turning back in with a great splash. Another pod, these much smaller, with skin swirling like smoke, pop up for nary an instant before they disappear underfoot. Emma watches with interest, smiling when curious eyes ripple beneath the water, though she seems subdued. He can hardly blame her, a knot twisting down deep in his belly. He leaves the helm when their time is up, and joins her at starboard, where the light borne of her magic simply…stops.

"Well this is anticlimactic," Emma says.

"To say the least."

They watch the water for several long, dull minutes. _Seven_ of them, by Emma's unbearably accurate estimation. Yet nothing happens, aside from the curious absence of the critters they'd picked up since crossing the current.

"Maybe it's like a…" She waves her hands around, as she often seems wont to do. "…decoy or something.

"Aye. Maybe we ought to – "

Ought to _leave_ is what he means to say. But then, quite without warning, the water beneath them turns, and the ship begins to rock. He leans even further over the edge, and the chaos in the water begins to coalesce into a familiar pattern, a whirlpool of sorts, a –

"Portal!" he shouts, and he rushes to the helm. But there's little that can be done, as he well knows. In his desperation, he pulls at the wheel of the ship, but it doesn't budge, turned hard to starboard. So instead, he means to rush to Emma, to gather her in his arms and hold as tight as he can manage. But before he can follow through, before he can even _see_ her, the _Jolly Roger_ gives a terrible, rending creak, before it turns on its side, and falls into the water.


	5. Part Five

Summary: Intending to return to Neverland after his quest for revenge comes to an abrupt end, Killian Jones finds himself in Duodenary, a realm whose existence allows Neverland, and the people therein, to live forever. After months of trying and failing to find a way to go home, a princess comes looking to him for help.

Warnings: Smut (between the first and second page break)

Notes: As ever, all my love and gratitude to all read/reviewed/favorited/followed. It's much appreciated. Part Six goes up on Tuesday.

* * *

When the world rights itself, Killian thinks only briefly on the damage to his beloved ship, instead running to find Emma, fearing she'd toppled over the edge.

"Emma!" he shouts, when he doesn't see her. His coat is sodden, and so he lets it fall from his shoulders before he leaps down the stairs, in overpowering desperation. He's only a moment to taste perhaps the _most_ terrible fear he's ever known before he hears her voice.

"I'm right here, idiot," she says, getting to her feet from behind a row of barrels, tied to the gunwale with several, careful knots.

He sighs, long suffering. "Pardon me, darling, while I go check for gray hairs."

She only rolls her eyes in response before she turns her head back to look at the sky. She turns once before him, then twice, when he follows suit. It takes a moment for him to get his bearings, to drink in the familiar stars in the sky. He spots first the constellations depicting the war in Dark Hollow. The stars shift with the movement of the figures above. A winged creature falls to the tricks of the Lost Boys, another taking its place. Like a fiery loop in the sky, it plays again and again, the terrible scene reflected brightly in the dark waters that stir below.

"Where _are_ we?" Emma says, in awe of the magic above.

Killian, though, has lived far too many ageless years in this realm to look kindly upon its superficial beauty.

"Neverland," he answers.

She shifts into his space, then, grabbing hold of his arm. She reaches up, tugs at the collar of his vest until he looks down at her. He's unprepared for how close she is, but relishes it all the same, smiling when he can feel her fingers brush over the tender skin of his neck.

"How long before we forget?" she says.

Though he meant to lean down to kiss her – no time like the present, he supposes – he backs away, nary a fraction, and quirks a brow.

"Forget?"

"Yeah. Isn't there some kind of magic that makes you…" She gestures with the hand free of his leathers. "…forget who you are?"

He frowns. "It's not quite so simple as that, love. Not only does it take many decades, it's also rather dependent on the state of your heart. I forgot much of who I _was_ , not what had happened to me, and only because I gave into darkness. Someone such as you…"

He looks down, scratches behind his ear. "…you could never forget who you were, Emma."

She considers him for a moment before she takes his other lapel in hand. The heavy material of his vest squeaks beneath her gentle insistence, until he's no choice but to look into her eyes.

"You're not dark anymore," she says.

"I'm not sure that darkness is something one leaves behind. I bear the mark of the things I've done, Swan, just as sure as the scars on my back."

She has no reply to this – his Swan, she's a woman of action anyway – and so she only kisses him. Rather chaste, but telling. With the barest pressure of teeth to his lower lip, she tells him to leave his self-pity behind. With the drag of her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, she begs that he forgive himself.

"I'll try," he tells her, when she pulls away. To which she nods. She breathes a moment before she pulls away. She plants her feet apart, unthinkingly, and peers over her shoulder at something in the distance. He follows her gaze, to see the faintest swirl of light above Skull Rock. It's some leagues away, nothing terribly taxing, though he's loathe to step foot on that indomitable island ever again.

"That giant rock looks like someone's head," she says.

He hums. "Skull Rock."

She laughs. "You're joking."

The smile on his face is unbidden, though welcome, as dreadful memories threaten to overtake him. "I think you'll find that children are terribly literal."

"Okay, then, _Skull Rock_. Is it just me, or does the light shining out through the…" She wrinkles her nose, and unthinkingly takes hold of his hook as she stands by his side, looking out over the starboard side of the ship. "…eye sockets?"

He nods. "Right you are, love. Though that's not unusual, it feels – "

" – weird. It feels _weird_. Like the world itself is…shifting."

Sure enough, when he tilts his head, and squints his eyes, the air about the island does appear to ripple. The touch of her hand to his person is calming, and it frees his mind enough to feel for the power. He's no sorcerer, but he knows magic when he feels it. There it gathers, and there it multiplies, with dark intent.

"Well, Swan, how would you like to visit one of Neverland's most charming islands?"

She sighs. "Every girl's dream."

He laughs, and sets to furling up a few of the sails. The winds in the Gear were slow beyond reason, but here in the Neverland, the breeze is steady, and gusts are not altogether uncommon. A stiff wind will send them off course. Emma shuffles alongside him, helping when she can, observing when he waves her off. Killian imagines she'd make an excellent student. He thinks to teach her when this is over. Only…

"What happens?" he says, when he stands leisurely at the helm, after he's donned one of the spare coats he keeps in his cabin. He holds steady at the wheel, staying true to course to Skull Rock.

"What do you mean?" she says. She's only paying attention by halves, he knows, judging by the way she's watching the sails billow, leaning over the gunwale to watch the hull cut through the surface of the water, to look at the spirits that splash about in the wake trailing behind them.

"When this is over, I mean. Shall I never see you again?"

 _This_ catches her attention. She turns to look at him, and he busies himself with brushing imaginary dust away from the spokes on the wheel.

"You really think I'd just leave?" she says.

"Well," he answers, turning to smile at her, swishing his coat affectedly, disingenuously. "I _am_ nothing but a pirate."

Killian realizes that he's goading her, that's he behaving like a child, but he feels as though he's not in control of himself. He regrets his behavior even as he plays the part of an unfeeling bastard. Emma, though, she's no fool. She clutches at his shoulder, and maneuvers him around, slipping between him and the helm. Her back steadies the wheel, and she jerks at the buckle on his belt, until he falls into the cradle of her hips.

"You're an idiot," she says. "Do you know that?"

He frowns, cages her within his arms, if only so he doesn't crush her against the ship behind her.

"You'll have to be more specific," he says.

"I don't just…" She hesitates, and the fire in her eyes softens, a bit shy. "…you're the second."

He quirks a brow. "Second?"

"The second person I've ever…gotten close to."

"What happened to the first?"

Emma gnaws on her lip, until it's red and glistening. She twists her fingers in his vest, again and again. He's certain she's stretching it beyond wearability. Then again, he can't find it within himself to care, not when she seems to make a decision, when she lets her demons bleed out in front of him.

"You go first," she says, at length.

"Pardon?"

"Last night. You were saying something about Milah…?"

Killian inhales, sharply. So he'd babbled in the throes of his nightmares once more. He feels embarrassed, to say the least, telling her his darkest secrets in the dead of night, burdening her heart even more than it already is. Next he waits for the cloying touch of bitter nostalgia, the sharp sting of dark magic in the air, the smell of his own blood spilling out the deck. His stomach does turn, but he finds that, with Emma's hands pulling gently at his clothes, he's not nearly as lost as he could be.

 _Not lost at all_ , he thinks, when she tugs on the charms at his neck.

"She was my love," he says. He feels heavy on his feet, so he wraps his fingers around her arm, and shuffles until he's very nearly leaning against her. "She was taken. The Dark One…he ripped her heart out and crushed it right in front of me. I came to this realm to find a way to defeat him. But when I returned to the Enchanted Forest, the darkness had already been vanquished by a powerful sorcerer called Merlin, aided in part by the gods. I suppose they'd had enough of his machinations."

Emma listens to his sorry tale with a stolid tilt to her mouth. Her eyes, though, they give her away. She rages silently, and it occurs to him that she does not pity him, merely wants to _know_ him, as he does her.

Killian is surprised by himself, how he can tell her, somewhat impassively, about the loss of his dear Milah. It's softened by the haze of memory, muddied by his years in Neverland. He can't quite recall the shade of her hair, the color of her eyes. She was much a pirate, like him, and he remembers her tenacity, the crinkles by her temples when she smiled. But there's little else, a hole of love, of life, often behaving like quicksand, stifling any other who dares to approach his heart.

Except, of course –

"Emma."

"What?" she says.

"Nothing. I just…it's nothing."

She doesn't press him for more, only watches him. He glances up to make certain they're still on course. The winds are steady, and the _Jolly Roger_ is true, here on the familiar waters of Neverland. So he looks down, and catches the roving starlight glistening in the whites of her eyes.

"Graham," she says.

He frowns.

"My, uh…person, I guess."

Killian treads carefully, feels the tremble in her fingertips. He imagines this is where she runs, where the sunken sands of her own heart bury all inklings of love. She's quiet for quite some time, and he wonders if he ought to give her a nudge. But even with fear tensing at the chords of her neck, she hangs on to him, tighter still. So he only waits. When her nostrils flair, and her lips quiver, he waits. When she rests her head against his chest, he _waits_.

"He was taken too," she says, when they're beneath a different scene playing out in the sky, this one of the Lost Boys learning to fly. "By Regina."

Killian's grip tightens on her elbow, until she leans back, makes a noise of protest.

"Sorry, love. That was just – "

"Unexpected?"

"Aye."

"I've forgiven her."

He quirks a brow, and she sighs.

"For the most part."

"It would be difficult not to be wary, Emma. You carry a weight on your shoulders, one that convinces you to question yourself." She sighs, and he sidles closer, taking hold of her shirt in-between his fingers and thumb. Then, quietly, he says, "What happened?"

"She saved my life." When he quirks a brow, she waves him off. "It's a long story. Basically, my mom told a secret when she was young, and it ended up getting her fiancé killed. She spent years trying to get her revenge."

He hums. "Perhaps Regina and I have more in common than I thought."

"She did the same thing."

"The same thing?"

Emma looks down, reaches out to fiddle with his hook. "She crushed Graham's heart. But then she met Robin. And her mother tried to have her killed. It…escalated, and I ended up a sort of a target. She saved my life. I could have killed her when she did. I was angry enough. But then I…I just couldn't."

Killian tugs harder on her shirt. "That's generous of you."

Emma shrugs. "Sometimes, I look at you…"

She trails off, and then she looks up at him, then. _Really_ looks at him. Out of words, it seems. Understandable, given the general terseness of her speech. Instead, she tells him, silently, and he parrots –

"Sometimes I look at you," he says, "and I wonder if it will happen again."

She nods. "How long until we reach the island?"

"Another hour, perhaps."

"What would you say…" She pulls him closer still, and all at once, the adrenaline accompanied by fear, it fizzles out in his blood, and he's once more overwhelmed by how hard, how fast, he fell for this woman.

"What would you say if I asked you to make love to me?" she says. Propriety would demand she be embarrassed by her request. But she looks him head on, and thinks propriety would similarly demand that he not very nearly beg –

"I would ask that you do the same to me."

* * *

It only occurs to him, once they're down in his cabin, that he's not been touched like this since Milah. His crew would often indulge, and he had no problem with that, though they would cajole him to join. To find a willing lass and forget himself for a time.

Only, of all the things he's forgotten, Killian remembers too well what it feels like to linger. With touches, with kisses, in bed in the morning, on the ship throughout the afternoon. He knows what it's like to know a woman before he makes love to her. Once, after Milah was taken, he'd fallen into bed with someone in a small village in the southern reaches of the realm, where the sand burned hot, and the waters were blue and clear and cool. But, in the end, he couldn't go through with it. Every touch was a means to end, not a start, not even somewhere in the middle. Now, though, _now_ –

"Emma," he says, when she's thrown his coat to the floor, tossed his vest unceremoniously over her shoulder. She's tugging his shirt out from beneath his trousers when he speaks, "Tell me this isn't the only time, love."

She tilts her head, and abandons his shirt to frame his face with her hands, to pull him down until he can feel the flush on her cheeks.

"Unless we die right afterwards, no, it's not the only time."

He smiles against her mouth, though his own lips still tremble. "That's rather morbid."

Emma shrugs. "Just being honest."

She kisses him, then, or he kisses her, and he can taste it on her tongue, that she means it, that she won't leave him, not if she can help it. So he surrenders himself to the way that her fingers crawl back down to his shirt, the way that they pull, perhaps a bit too hard –

"You're going to rip my shirt, Swan."

"I've _seen_ your closet, you have like thirty of these."

– until she can run her hands over his back. Again, as she traces the scars there with her blunted nails, he shudders, thinking of how long it's been, worrying it's been _too_ long, thinking that everywhere she touches burns too bright, that he loves her too much, that he'll lose her if he thinks too hard…

"Killian," she says, once she's pulled his shirt over his head, and buried her hands in his hair, making a terrible mess of it.

"What?" he answers, sluggish and slurred when she presses hard against his scalp.

"You're thinking too hard."

"Funny, I was just – "

"I'm thinking hard too, you know."

He cracks his eyes open, wondering when, exactly, he'd shut them. Her eyes glisten, wetly, and he reaches up to take gentle hold of her elbow, loops his hook in her belt and pulls, until she's flush against him. They stand still. For a long, drawn moment, time stretching and grinding to a halt between them. He tilts his head, and takes a measured step, so that she stands in the moonlight. He realizes that, despite the warm, brilliant starlight of Duodenary, it's not quite like the light of the moon, which sets her skin aglow. Slowly, he reaches up, and drags his thumb down her jaw, down to the dent in her chin, then further still to the chords of her neck.

"I won't leave you, Emma," he says, at length. "Death be damned, should it come. I'll turn back time if I have to."

"Don't think you can _damn_ death."

He tries not to smile, and he tries not to kiss her, but he does both, drawing in and out of her mouth, tugging at her clothes until she too is bare from the waist up.

"I'm not gonna leave you either," she says, when he pulls away to kiss along the arch of her jaw, down the slope of her neck. Her hands begin to wander, until they find that straps that crisscross up and over his shoulder, holding his brace and his hook in place. She wriggles her fingers beneath the leather, and he sighs, even as she does the same when he drags his knuckles over the underside of her breasts. He's so distracted by the way she breathes – erratic and warm against his neck – when he touches her nipples that he's quite taken by surprise when he feels his bunk at the backs of his knees, practically falling on his arse with a quiet _oof_. Emma nudges his legs apart, and stands between, grasping handfuls of his hair, and tugging until he replaces his fingers with his mouth. He sucks, just barely, turning from one to the other, then back again, until she's scratching at his back, harder and harder with each pass of his tongue.

"Shall I make you come with my tongue, Swan?" he asks.

Emma laughs, even as she shuffles behind him onto the bed. Reaching down, she begins to tug at her own pants, pushing until he turns, kissing her belly as he pulls them down her legs.

"You don't kid around with this whole sex thing," she says.

Killian hums in question, even as he carefully pulls her feet free, until she's completely bare beneath him. He kisses her belly, and the muscles beneath begin to bunch up, then relax, back around again, in a telling rhythm. He shuffles further down, until he's breathing over her sex, pausing to look up at her –

"Well?"

"Me laughing was a _yes_."

"I'll keep that in mind," he says, and then he's kissing her, rolling the flat of his tongue until she plants her feet on the bed, until her hand is holding so tight to his hair, his eyes begin to water. He dips inside to taste, and then meanders back up, repeating the same motion until he works first one, then two, fingers inside of her. He strokes, and he sucks, until she comes with a breathy cry, the sort of sound he won't soon forget.

"Would you prefer I be on top?" he says, when he's back at her side, though his fingers remain behind, stoking the pleasure he can see in her eyes with terribly gentle presses of his thumb.

Emma shakes her head. "No."

"Bottom, then."

"No."

Killian hums. "We can stand, if you wish, but fair warning, it will be from behind, and I won't be lasting very long."

She laughs.

"So that's a yes."

Emma turns on her side to face him, and throws her leg over his. She wriggles around him, until his erection throbs between her legs, pulling him down and arching her back. The longer she positions him, the more he pants, thrusting mindlessly between her legs. When she has him to her liking, she goes back to the straps on his arm and shoulder, and tugs until it falls. Emma caresses the skin – callouses and all, feeling relief in the open air – that she finds, before she tugs him closer still.

"Like this," she says, and she takes him in hand, allowing him to press slowly inside, with a spectacular groan. Each push and pull brings him deeper, until their hips are flush, and his stomach presses over and between her folds with each thrust.

"Do you ever think," Killian says, staving off his orgasm with deep, measured breaths, "about the moment we met?"

She nods, face buried in his neck.

"Truth be told, I thought you'd come to kill me, then kidnap me – "

"You're never gonna get over that, are you," she says, still breathy, leaning back to look up at him. He smiles when she does, and presses a little harder, just that bit faster.

"I thought I recognized you. Even then, I knew you."

She shifts, and he pauses, feeling his stomach draw up tight. When he resumes, it's faster still.

"I knew you," he repeats.

"I knew you, too," she says.

That's the last that either of them say, at least until they come, her with her fingers down between them, and he with her name on his lips.

"Sometimes," she says, when he's taken a strip of cloth between them, and laid down beside her to wait out the rest of the hour, "I just randomly think about you asking animals for their magic, about those narwhals, and – "

"Think about how charming I was?"

" – _and_ I laugh about how ridiculous it is."

"In a good way," she adds, when he pouts.

They lie still for a good while after that, his chest brushing against hers with each breath he takes. And he just looks at her, until the clock she carries in her mind tells them they only have fifteen minutes remaining, and they slowly redress in the hazy starlight.

"Do you think this will work?" she says, quietly, when they stand before one another by the ladder that leads back up to the deck. They linger, just as he always cherished, and he tangles his fingers in her hair as he answers, honestly –

"I don't know, Swan."

She sighs, and presses one last, long kiss to his lips before she climbs up, with he, as ever, quick to follow.

* * *

They arrive in Skull Rock just as Killian said, right on the hour. Or so she tells him, still keeping track of time, despite the fact that it doesn't move. He moors the _Jolly_ just off the southwestern corner of the island –

"Southwestern?" she says, endearingly confused.

"Eight o'clock," he answers.

– before they row in on a skiff. They anchor it in the sands and make their way towards the central edifice. It hulks impressively above them, brown-black stone dull in the fog that rolls from its mouth. As ever, it is terribly foreboding, wrapped in shadows, suffused in magic that makes his gut twist. He never did like Skull Rock, despite the rumors to the contrary. He'd only ever used it as a cover, sailing up and around to avoid the scrutiny of the Lost Boys, who would linger on the coasts just west of the island. He'd only ever made land a half a dozen times or so in his centuries in Neverland, and only ever to recover from a skirmish, or to fell a tree to repair the _Jolly Roger_. Even then, he'd hated it. And now, more than ever, as they traverse deep into the fringing forests, where he's never stepped foot. Up close, he can see the way the air twists. Whatever magic lives in the skull, it's more insidious than he ever remembers, hissing through the air and making his hair stand on end. As they walk along a path worn through the trees, the very air around them seems to narrow and stretch – to _breathe_ – as they make their way. He grabs at her hand when a particularly vicious wave of power coils just above them.

"This is fucking creepy," she says.

"My sentiments exactly."

They're careful to watch for danger as they go. But besides the light, the power, they appear to be alone. He's always been one to trust his gut, and he finds nothing amiss. Which is why he keeps on glancing over his shoulder, suspicious of the lack of obvious threats. If power does linger here, there's likely something or someone who intends to use it. Emma agrees, and so they pick up the pace towards the clearing that lies at the base of the stone walkway that winds up into the heart of the rock.

"Maybe something just kicked up the connection between Neverland and Duodenary," Emma says.

"Aye. Perhaps."

She tugs a little harder on his hand. "You don't sound convinced."

"Nothing _feels_ awry."

"And?"

"And this is Neverland, darling. Something _always_ feels awry."

She considers this a moment, before she says, "Eye of the storm?"

He answers only with the subtle downturn of his lips. They've only a quarter league to go, at most. Only moments, it seems, before they break into the clearing, along the edge of a pond that pools near to the base of their destination. As many centuries as he'd spent in Neverland, he never did like to frequent the island of Skull Rock. It was foreboding, and not just because of its shape. Magic could always be felt, flowing. He wonders now if this was it. For down the creatures of Duodenary rain, just as they rise in the waters of Emma's home. They float easily along a current that billows in the air. Where, in Duo Twelve, they're simply old, tired, they're now very clearly dead. They touch the water, and break dissipate into dust. A gentle pulse of light follows in their wake, and appears to flood beneath the earth, between the trees and up into the great rock before them.

" _Fuck_ ," Emma says. She squeezes tightly to his hand, and he looks down at her. She watches as the creatures of her home realm meet their end, and _he_ watches as tears well up and fall.

"Emma…"

"What is going _on_ here?" she wonders aloud. "I mean, I knew they came here to die. But it's like they're being… _siphoned_ or something."

"Was this not a part of your agreement?"

She shakes her head. "Time runs its course, creatures die, their spirits come here to rest. We were always told they eventually become a part of the water. But now they're just – "

"They're dying."

"Yeah."

He wipes gently at her tears, catching them on the backs of his fingers with what he hopes is a gentle smile before he tugs her along.

"Let's fix it, aye?"

She doesn't answer, only follows when he leads. It doesn't take long for them to reach the stone pathway, and not much longer than that for them to find the end, where it empties into a great, glowing cavern. It's roughly globular, with craggy, brown, stone face walls. The ground beneath them is damp, the stalactites above dripping down loudly at their feet. It's dirty, smells of day old fish and rotten earth. At the center of the cavern lies a massive crystal. It too is rather globular in shape, and it pulses with the magic it appears to gather from the dead spirits that dissipate just outside. It seems to fill with water, with power, swirling with colors and foreboding, unknown purpose. The magic radiates outwards when it reaches its limit, stretching the very fabric of time, of space.

"What the _hell_ is this?" Emma says. She circles it, curious, coming closer with each pass.

"What does it feel like?" Killian answers.

"What do you mean?"

"You're the sorceress, love. Trust your gut. What does it tell you?"

She considers the crystal for a long moment, then looks back at him. "That I have to stop it."

He nods, grimly. "What do you need me to do?"

Emma fidgets for a moment. She looks to the crystal, then back to him. She repeats the circuit several times before she settles on him. There's a healthy dose of fear in her eyes. He tries to smile encouragingly, but he fears it comes out as more of a grimace.

"Just don't leave?" she says.

"I would sooner perish."

He means to make her smile. She doesn't.

Emma takes another turn about the crystal before she lifts her hands. A gentle, warming power glows from somewhere within her heart, and Killian watches as it creeps into her hands. He figures now isn't the time to tell her how beautiful she is, how her passion shines even brighter than the magic she wields. So he stands to the side, waits while she presses her palms flat against the crystal. For a moment, it flickers dark, and Killian smiles, triumphant, opens his mouth to spur her on when –

 _Cold_ , he thinks. It's the first sensation that registers when something clamps tight around his wrist and yanks him down on his arse.

 _Wet_ , is the second. The water beneath him is just as chilly as the metal cinching tighter and tighter around his bones, perhaps even more so, and he grimaces in general discomfort.

 _Emma_ , he thinks, third, and, rather stunned out of his wits, look up to find her in a similar position. Not gobsmacked, like he, but put out, and glaring impressive daggers just over his shoulder.

"Ah," a familiar tenor sounds from behind. "Captain Hook. It's been a while."

Killian turns, finds the devil wearing the face of a boy.

"Pan," he seethes.

"Who?" Emma says.

Pan laughs, sounding disturbingly free, as though he's strolling merrily through Pixie Hollow. "Oh, Captain. One would think you'd tell the other visitors about me. This is _my_ realm, after all."

"Must have slipped my mind."

Killian squirms in place as Pan stalks across the cavern. He's certain he's never been so frustrated, so consumed, all at once, by fear and by anger. The closer he gets to Emma, the more his blood boils, and he can only think how _close_ they were. Or…perhaps they were never close. Pan was always a nuisance, but – and he thinks on the spirits falling from the sky, limp in death, mangled in the crossing from one realm to the next, and of Emma's face, tears glistening crystalline and genuine on her face – he couldn't imagine him quite so cruel as to destroy entire _realms_ for his own gain.

"What do you want?" Emma says, when Pan seems content to simply march along the cavern.

Pan hums, seems to consider her for a moment before a flick of his wrist brings the sword at Emma's side to his own hip, and another turns Killian's own sword to dust. He drums on Emma's sword, in casual mockery of the blade's utility –

 _Namely, in killing_ you _,_ Killian thinks, digging his hook into the earth and rock beside him.

– as he continues along his promenade. He makes another pass before he stops between the two shackles. Pan looks first to Killian, then to Emma.

"Why _you_ , of course," he says.

Emma looks confused, for all the world like a child as she twists her lips, and quirks a thin brow at the man child standing above her. It's terrible, really, how captivating she is, even while the magical villain before them weighs them, measures them. Killian finds himself resting back on his haunches, strangely… _hopeful_ as he watches the love of his long, miserable life best the demon between them with weary disdain.

"I'm sorry," Emma says, sounding anything but sorry, "but this villain speech would go a lot quicker if you just told us outright what you're up to."

"Or if you just kill us and be on your merry little way," Killian interjects.

"Emphasis on little."

Pan sighs, and his condescending smile fades for a moment, and he chooses to ignore their collective taunt. Killian can see the strain in the boy's shoulders, though, so he counts it as a victory.

"You know," Pan says, "I figured the drain would draw you here. After all, I've heard a great deal about the savior of Duo Twelve."

Emma scoffs. "You've got the wrong person, kid."

Pan sneers. "Perhaps _savior_ is the wrong word. Something I think I've only ever heard uttered in the Enchanted Forest. Witch, then? Enchantress? Or some unbearable metaphor on time. Duodenarians have always been dreadfully dull that way. Whatever you call it, I thought it would be best to dispatch of you first, before I set the new normal."

Killian and Emma alike wait for Pan to elaborate. But, as he's said, he has all the time he needs at his disposal. And so, with practiced boredom, Killian eggs him on –

"New normal?"

Pan smiles, and walks along with Emma's sword in hand, pressing the tip into the ground with each step, as though it were a cane.

"Why is it," he says, "that Duodenary should benefit from the power that Neverland's time provides?"

"Uh, because you get to live forever?" Emma says. "Seems like a good trade to me."

Pan shakes his head. "It's not enough. I want to be able to _mold_ this island. I want to be able to travel between realms, to take the magic of Neverland with me. Life eternal carries a price. I don't want to pay it any longer. Turns out, with the power of all the Lost Boy's shadows here in my heart – "

He reaches into his chest, then, and pulls out the darkest heart Killian has ever seen. He's seen his own, in fact, swirling black in the center, pulsing with anger and vengeance. But this, well _this_ is hardly a heart at all. Merely an aura, swirling black and purple. He can feel the magic fizzle through the air, buzzing through his teeth. Emma appears similarly affected, squinting as though she's looking at the sun.

" – I can pretty much do whatever I want. And so I thought, why not speed the shunt of time into your realm, speed the return in your magical spirits, and harness the power for myself? The time from Neverland flows into the forest in the northeast – "

"Duo Two," Killian corrects.

" – in the _northeast_. It concentrates in the Gear, and flows outward, until all those little spirits come floating back to Neverland where they belong, bringing their time back with them in the form of _age_. Only now, much faster. Soon the decay will spread, Duodenary will crumble, and I'll have all the power that I need."

Emma looks at Killian, then, and though he can tell she's afraid, she's also, as she often says, _done_. So she leans, looking frightfully bored, back against the crystal.

"Can we hear the rest of your evil plan so that I can go to sleep?"

Pan looks amused, oddly enough, and he crouches down in front of her. Killian strains against his shackle, wishing he were closer, wishing he could, at the very least, direct the demon's attention to him in her stead.

"Feeling tired, are we?"

"I never say no to a nap," she says.

This is, of course, a blatant lie. Emma can hardly sleep at night, never mind during the day. Even so, the vulgar smile on the boy's face melts slowly to anger.

"Or perhaps it's the drain," he says, when he leaps nimbly to his feet. "What better way to rid myself of you than to strip your life away, your _magic_ away."

Killian strains even harder. "You bloody _bastard_ ," he growls. "Why not just _kill_ us and have it over with?"

Pan picks at a stray thread on his shoulder before he turns back to them, walking backwards towards one of the eyes of the skull. He sheathes Emma's sword. No longer amused, no longer patient, he ignores Killian's plea. Emma, he notices, appears yet bored by the boy. She simply waits, until he elaborates –

"Time moves here in the center of the island, but very slowly. It will be several days before you die. It's for the best, I think. I'd hate for you to miss it. When I rewind the time here, that is."

Only then does Emma speak, softly, "Rewind?"

"With enough power, you can do anything."

And with that, Pan leaps out of Skull Rock, leaving them to die.


	6. Part Six

Summary: Intending to return to Neverland after his quest for revenge comes to an abrupt end, Killian Jones finds himself in Duodenary, a realm whose existence allows Neverland, and the people therein, to live forever. After months of trying and failing to find a way to go home, a princess comes looking to him for help.

Warnings: Language, violence

Notes: Last part on Thursday!

* * *

"Well this is just marvelous," Killian says, voice a sonorous echo in the heart of Neverland.

 _Neverland_ , he thinks, with some measure of disgust. He can hardly believe he ever longed to return. Dark, ageless, the blood of his brother spilt on the soil only several dozen nautical miles from this very place, likely sinking slowly into the ground, where its story is bound to be lost. To time, to memory.

And now, it ever so slowly drains his Swan, stealing the magic she possesses to fuel its dark purpose. He grinds his teeth, and pulls experimentally at the shackle around his wrist.

"Bloody fucking marvelous," he says.

Emma rolls her eyes. "Is that all you're gonna say while I'm over here dying the world's slowest death?"

Killian slams his hook into the earth beneath him. A chip of the rock comes loose, and it feels mighty satisfying. For a brief moment, he imagines the demon boy's heart in its place, gushing the life force he steals from those around him. He imagines running him through, perhaps simultaneously, if only to hear the anguish that spills –

"Listen," Emma interrupts the train of thought. "Judging by your face, you're murdering imaginary Pan right this second. But can you maybe help me out of these binds instead?"

Killian huffs. In fact, it sounds more like a growl, feral and furious. So dark and vicious, he nearly startles himself.

"I'm _stuck_ , Swan," he says. "How do you expect me to free you when I'm equally incapacitated?"

" _Uh_ ," she says, and he's uncertain how she can imbue the simple sound with such incredible sarcasm. "Pretty sure you just chipped a good amount of that rock out of the ground with your hook while you were having a tantrum. Maybe direct it over towards your shackle, and we'll be getting somewhere."

He takes a long moment to chastise himself – they are, after all, practically swimming in time. As the demon said, it will take equivalent _weeks_ for her to perish. Killian's certain they'd starve first, but then again, Pan would hardly pass on an opportunity to taunt them when necessary, to feed them just enough to keep them alive, lying in their own fluids, drinking misery as sure as it were water. He thinks, of course, of these things happening to _Emma_. He's been beaten, starved, shackled, any number of _un_ -pleasantries. The pain fades, but the memory doesn't, and he thinks of his dear Emma, her charming inability to stay still while she sleeps, traded for the stillness and sleeplessness that accompany nightmares of the highest order.

"Killian?"

He clenches his jaw so hard, he nearly scrapes away the corner of one of his teeth.

"Emma?" he answers.

"I'm okay."

He looks up at her, then, and sees that she's right. While he frets about what _could_ come to pass, she's merely bound. Not ideal, perhaps, but her expression is as light as it ever was. The precious metals and gemstones that seem to forge her person glimmer as brightly as he knows they can.

"I'm okay," she repeats.

"I'm okay, too."

She smiles, and he smiles back.

"Right you are, love," he says, turning to brace his knees on the ground, to scrape a mark into the rock beneath him. He aims carefully, and then begins to chip away. The rock is relatively soft, although it takes him a good while before the brace for the chain begins to jiggle. He's worked up a thick sweat –

"Bloody fucking _coat_."

"The sacrifices you pirates make for your fashion."

"We're in mortal peril, and you mock my choice of dress."

– before it's nearly come loose. A few more well placed _cracks_ and Emma shouts triumphantly when he topples backwards with the force of his own blow, dragging the chain behind him. He gives his hands a few shakes, the chain and shackle rattling around him, before he turns his attention back to her. As he goes, her joy devolves quickly into laughter, a sound which grows with force and with volume as he extracts a small knife from a harness he wears around his thigh.

"Having a good time, are we, Swan?"

"You keep a knife by your crotch."

He huffs as he saws gently through the rope, huffs _harder_ when he finds the skin reddened underneath. But he has a feeling she'd be no more charmed by his protective frustration than by his mouth when he says –

"Yes, _yes_ , let's all take a moment to entertain ourselves with the thought of my cock cut loose by this dull knife. _Do_ let's eat rather gleefully into the precious moments we have left to escape this grim reality."

Her arms and wrist fall free of the rope, and she rolls her eyes, even as she hauls herself to sitting by grasping his shoulders. Shaking the cricks out of her own shoulders, pausing to stretch her back, she reaches down to take hold of his wrist. She inspects the shackles a moment, poking at the locking mechanism that keeps it in place.

"It's alright, Swan, just leave it. Or better yet, find me another hook, and they can call me Captain Hooks, instead."

"You are _so_ dramatic," she says, but it lacks much luster. "Just let me…"

She bites at her lip, and places her palm over the shackle. It only take a few moments for the chain to come undone, to fall at their feet with a heavy thud.

Emma looks up at him, and smiles, and a heavy tension begins to build between them. He can feel her breath stirring the hairs at the top of his head, as he leans down to slowly unwind her legs. He fumbles when she leans down, and he can feel her cheek against the ruffled part in his hair, even more so when she presses a kiss to his hairline. Another to his temple, another to the tip of his ear. He pauses, and looks up at her, at which point she smiles, seemingly unaffected by the drain that pulls away her magic. Again, he's plagued by all too vivid images of her death, cobbled together from all the other deaths he's witnessed. He shakes his head, redoubles his efforts, and she's free in seconds. He sighs, but the sarcastic commentary he'd cooked up falls from the tip of his tongue when he looks up, and sees her face.

Fear. _Fear._ Unbridled, darkening the rims of evergreen around her eyes. Now she's free, and can clutch tightly at the sides of his face, she trembles, and he crushes her to his chest.

"Oh, _Emma_."

"I'm scared too, you know," she says, words warm and wet against the skin of his neck.

"Aye."

Killian pulls back, and helps her to her feet. She's back in his arms before he can turn around. Typically, he'd be in a greater hurry, but he knows they have the time, and though she crushes his toes beneath her feet as she scrambles closer, he can't find it within himself to whinge. He presses his brace hard against the small of her back. He tangles his fingers in her hair, and leans down to kiss along the slope of her shoulder. She, meanwhile, drags nonsense along his scalp, one hand wriggling between coat and vest, pulling gently at his shirt so she can feel the bare skin of his back.

"We should go," she says, and he nods his agreement against the side of her face. They untangle themselves as slowly as the jellysloths he's seen swimming by minutiae beneath the roots of the mangroves in Duo Three. The thought gives him pause, when he finds himself _missing_ the roll of the sun around the rim of the universe.

"I imagine we'll be more vulnerable as soon as we step out of the cavern," he says.

Emma hums, wraps her fingers tightly around his hook. "You first, then. I honestly have _no_ clue where the hell we are, _or_ how to get back."

"We'll take shelter with the faeries. They're not terribly fond of yours truly, but I've yet to meet a creature able to resist your charm. They'll help us to escape, if we help them vanquish Pan."

Killian turns, then, and leads her down the narrow slope to the mouth of the cavern. She creeps behind him as they edge towards the shadows.

" _Vanquish_ , Pan?" she says.

"Aye, love. He's certainly gone too – "

Too _far_ , is what he means to say, of course, but as they step into the shadows, he feels a mighty tug on his hook, nearly falling backwards before the weight of her hands slips away. He turns, and his blood drains from his face so quickly, the world goes silent for a moment.

"Ugh, what the _hell_ ," Emma says, writhing in pain, clutching at her temples. Killian drops to his knees, frantically searching for a wound, feeling for her pulse, wondering if her heart's been stolen, if she's near to death, if he has to watch yet _another_ of the loves of his miserable life be swallowed by darkness.

If so, he'll surely perish.

"You know, Captain, I really should be impressed."

" _Pan_ ," he grits, but he doesn't give the demon child the satisfaction of drawing his attention. Instead, he gathers Emma up into his arms, getting to his feet, hushing her when she whimpers and curls tightly into his chest.

"What have you done to her?" Killian says, darkly. He longs to turn, to run with her, but he's certain he'll be run through with the sword the hangs at Pan's side. _Emma's_ sword, he remembers.

Pan ignores the question, tapping lightly at the hilt of the sword. "It's only fair that this be mine, you know. I did kill its previous owner, after all."

Killian snarls, clutches harder at Emma's back, encourages her to twist over his shoulder, her cheek pressing hard against his.

" _Hurts_ ," she whispers.

"I know, I know," he whispers back, and he _does_ look at Pan then, right in the eye. He walks back up the slope, until he's standing mere feet from the boy. He looks up at him, curiosity overcoming his boredom. At the very least, he seems to sense no danger, and so when Killian takes yet another step, Pan merely quirks a brow.

"Please," Killian says, quietly. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the light pulsing faster within the crystal. The drain, he realizes, has sped up. He curls his fingers around Emma's neck, and feels her pulse beating erratically. He can hear the pain in the sounds she makes, falling unbidden from her lips. He can feel it in the twist of her body, in the chilly sweat that falls down from her hairline, off her chin, onto his throat.

" _Please_ ," he repeats. "Haven't you a shred of humanity? Let her live. Take me back into your employ, take my ship, take _anything_ you want. Just...please."

Pan considers him, rather gleefully. He steps back, and begins to circle, the gait of a predator, the unforgiving gleam of avarice and bloodlust shining in his deadened eyes. When he appears again, just in front of him, he gestures mildly with the hand not occupied with the filigree on the hilt of the sword at his hip, and Killian can feel Emma relax in his arms.

"I've slowed it, at least," Pan says. "It was awfully foolish of you to think I wouldn't erect a barrier, and that you wouldn't be _punished_ when you tried to cross it."

Killian doesn't answer, only holds Emma as tight as he can, for as long as he can. He's lived long enough to know when the end of his line approaches. And here it is. He can feel it. So he steps back, lays Emma down on a softer patch of earth. The drain has slowed, but the ground still trembles, and her eyes are shut to him. She appears to be asleep, at least unconscious. Her breathing is ragged, but when he presses his hand over her heart, it beats strong, steady. He wonders if this is the very last time he'll ever look at her. There's a finality in the way the demon behind him taps on his sword.

And so look he does. Killian pulls gently at the tangles in her hair, straightens the wrinkles in her short. One of the buttons on her vest is undone, and he undoes the next for good measure, remembering fondly the way she whinges at her clothes. The sweat dries, sticky and cool, on her face and her neck. He wipes at it with the back of his hand, smooths his fingers over her brow.

"Is it a fight that you want, then?" he says, when he can no longer find an excuse to look at her. He turns, and fights the beast within him that longs to look back.

Pan appears to consider Killian's question, rocking back and forth on his feet in a pale imitation of the fidgeting of a child.

"I think not," Pan says, at length. "I'd rather you were on your knees."

Violent protest flares in his chest. He can hear his jaw crack when he grinds his teeth.

"How can I be certain you'll spare her?"

"I may be many things, Captain, but have I ever broken my word?"

As much as he's loathe to admit it, the shadow of a man did at least carry some honor in his oaths. Even so, Killian shifts in place, turning the rings on his fingers around and around. He thinks, frantically on anything he can do, _anything_ by which to save both their lives. Yet, despite his own cunning, he can think of nothing. Only one of them may live. The choice is easy.

"Let me have it, then," Killian says. "Your word, give me your word. That she'll live. That you'll let her go."

Pan's sneer takes a turn for the grim, then, and he nods. "You have it. Now, on your knees."

Again, the beast within him rebels. Ever since his days as a servant, he's kneeled more times than he could count. He's scrubbed schooners the world over free of muck, turned his eyes down at the feet of the cruelest masters. He'd watched his brother do the same, wondering why fate had cast the both of them aside so viciously. At his own misbehavior, he had borne the lash, the flat end of a sword, all while shamefully, submissively, huddled on his knees.

Now, at least, he can do so in saving another. And so he falls, slowly, never once looking away from the demon's eyes. Pan draws Emma's sword, and lays it rather casually by his neck.

"This has been a long time coming, Killian Jones," he says. "Wouldn't you agree?"

"Longer still if you insist talking me to death."

Pan only laughs. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this. I think I'll string you up near the Hangman's Tree. Poetic, don't you think? By your lover's sword, a headless man on the hanging tree."

The boy lifts his sword, then, and Killian, for all his bravery, feels the bright, hot flash of fear, settling something sick in his belly. He closes his eyes, hoping only that Emma doesn't have to bear witness to the aftermath of his death. Poetic, _indeed_ , living and dying by the sword. If for no other cause, he'll perish for love.

He hears a bit of a scuffle, and he squeezes his eyes shut tighter. When he hears the sound of steel cutting through flesh, he waits for the pain to bloom.

Waits.

And waits.

Rather curious, it is, considering he hears the thud of a body, feels blood slick and warm where his legs are folded up beneath him. He wonders if fate has, at least, given him a painless death.

But then –

"This is the worst day ever."

Killian nearly hesitates to open his eyes. Then he hears her sigh, and he can't help but to look up at her.

A goddess, Emma is. Despite the dark scuffs on her clothing from the floor of the cavern. Her hair is wild and wet. She pants, yet pale and weak from the sudden, sharp magical drain. Pan lay dead at her feet, a terrible, crooked line of blood and bone and torn flesh down his back. The dark and terrible magic that lived in his heart dissipates into the air. Killian watches it rise, only for a moment before he looks back at her. The knife in her hand – _his_ knife, he realizes, the selfsame he must have failed to return to its harness at his thigh – is coated with purple-black blood. It drips headily onto the floor of the cavern, turning to a cloud of smoke when it comes into contact with the magic rippling along the stone. Her hands shake. With fear, perhaps, most certainly with anger, and when she lets the weapon drop, at last, with a wet clatter, she says –

"I hope that knife had crotch sweat on it."

Killian laughs, not without a great deal of hysteria, as he rises to his feet. He wants to run to her, but he finds himself nearly frozen, finds himself stepping slowly, carefully around the body of the boy beside them. She mirrors, looking up at him with an unreadable expression – something fond, something awestruck, something else that seems familiar, but he's hard pressed to name.

"Killian," she says.

"Emma," he answers.

It's _then_ that they fall into one another's arms, warmed by the glow of the magic still pulsing around them. He can feel the blood on her hand when she tangles her fingers in his hair, but he can't be bothered to care, not when he can feel her breathing, not when the leather of her pants squeaks delightfully against his own.

"We _seriously_ almost died just then."

Killian laughs, again. He laughs and he laughs, drawing her closer as he breathes in the smell of her skin. Which, to be frank, is quite terrible. But, it's familiar, and so he laughs again before he pulls back. He means to tell her –

 _You were brilliant._

 _Don't leave if I can't go with you._

 _I love you._

– when the grim expression on her face gives him pause. She takes his hand, slots her fingers between his, and places it gently over her heart. It thuds, a familiar sound by now, but he can tell…it's weak.

"Emma, _no_."

"It's still draining."

He takes a step, presses his forehead against hers. "We'll find a way."

"We can't leave – "

"I'd rather die than leave you behind – "

"If we break – "

"Swan, I will _not_ take _one_ step out of this cavern. Let the gods strike this foul magic down if they wish. I – "

"Ugh, _Killian_." She pulls back, reaches up to clutch at the side of his face. "It's a _curse_ , dammit. If you'd shut up a listen for a second, I'm trying to tell you the curses can be _broken_."

He frowns, presses harder against her heart.

"How?" he says.

Killian knows, of course, but his heart is racing enough for the both of them, his hand warming where hers begins to grow cold.

"You've read every book _ever_ and you don't know how to break a curse?" Emma says. But then she hesitates, looks down at his chest. He catches her with his hook, pressing the chilly metal gently beneath her chin, until she's looking back up at him.

"I _do_ know, Swan. I want you to _tell_ me."

Emma sighs, and looks at his lips, licking her own, before looking back up into his eyes.

"I'm scared," she says. "You?"

"Bloody terrified."

"We have to kiss," she whispers, nearly against his mouth.

"We don't _have_ to do anything, my love. It's not duty, it's desire."

She breathes, simply breathes, for several, stuttered beats of her heart. She fidgets, curling his hair around her fingers, leaning back and forth on her feet. The grays in her eyes begin to overtake the greens, and she says, so quietly, he has to cross his eyes to read the words from her lips –

"True love's kiss."

He swallows, nudges one of his feet in-between hers. He lets go of her hand, and clutches gently at the back of her neck.

"Are you certain?" he says.

"Not about that."

"About what, then?"

She leans back, just a fraction, and he pries his eyes open. He's unsure as to when they fell shut, only sure that Emma Swan is the love he's always been searching for. Not the ending he's thought on for so long, but the beginning it never occurred to him to hope for. She tilts her head back, and when she blinks up at him, when she licks her lips, when she flares her nostrils and stand steadier on her feet – the way she does when she's particularly tenacious – he realizes that, whether true or not, he's never loved anyone the way he loves her.

He means to tell her, in fact, when she pulls on his hair, until their lips are hardly a breath apart, and says, with no purpose, with no agenda, with the simplicity of feeling and realization –

"I'm in love with you."

– and kisses him.

* * *

The thing about true love's kiss is that it doesn't feel different from any other kiss they've shared.

Well, that's not quite true. Killian's busy savoring her admission while _she's_ busy memorizing the topography of his mouth. She draws over his teeth, his tongue, over the ridges on the roof. He follows her lead, as he always has, and she kisses him with incredible fervor, like _she_ always has. The only difference, is that it doesn't feel as though it's the last time, doesn't feel like he's wondering when she'll pull away, when the taste of her lips will disappear, forever but a memory. It feels like a beginning, and so when she pulls away, he stops only to breath before he throws his arms around her, lifts her off her feet, and kisses her yet again.

"We broke the curse like seven kisses ago," she says, before he counts to eight.

"I can _hear_ you counting under your breath," she says, between the eleventh and the twelfth.

"Are you _sure_ you're not from Duodenary?" she says, on number fourteen and a half.

"Why fourteen and a _half_?"

"I believe my tongue was still in your mouth when you questioned my heritage."

She smiles, and he smiles back, and it occurs to him, rather suddenly, that he never had the chance to reciprocate. She _must_ know, what with the eagerness of his response, with the magic that still snaps to life around them. But all the same, he wants to tell her. _Every_ day for the rest of their lives, for as long as she, royalty of Duo Twelve, will have _him_ , a centuries old salt.

"I love you," he says. "I'm _in_ love with you." He kisses her cheeks, her forehead, the tip of her nose. "I love you, I _love_ you."

Emma giggles, softly, beneath the onslaught of his lips. She grasps the lapels of his coat, and it's so heart achingly familiar, that he tells her again. Twice.

"You do realize the first time we're saying this is next to a dead body, right?"

Killian laughs, if a bit awkwardly. "I believe that's our cue to leave, darling."

She laughs, in turn, and he rushes them out of the cavern, and into the forest. These woods have always been a hassle, but the smell of palm, and of wet earth, of sweet berries and salt-tinged winds is enough to lift the rest of the fear from his heart. He turns to tell her so, because he wants to tell her _everything_. Wants to tell her what he thought when he first met her, wants to tell her every thought he's had since, every trivial detail, down to the hole in the stocking she wears on her left foot, how it drives him mad.

But the words startle off his lips when he spots another woman behind Emma.

"You forgot your sword," she says, at which point, Emma starts as well.

"I ought to gut you, Lady Bell."

"Friend or foe," Emma says. "Because I just killed somebody, and I need like at least a few minutes before I can do it again."

Tink laughs, and hands Emma her sword.

"Friend," Tink says. " _Especially_ after what you both just did."

Killian sighs. Exhaustion – the sort that always follows after a battle – sinks deep into his bones. He leans heavy against Emma, and she leans heavy against him.

"And what, pray tell, might that be?" he says.

Tink laughs, and though he longs for it to be grating, the laughter of a fairy is a different sort of magic altogether. It chips away at the fear that yet remains. Emma is similarly affected, turning into his chest with a sigh, the unburdened sort, the sort he hears when he kisses the patch of skin just beneath her ear.

"Why, you broke the curse of Neverland," Tink says.

At their collective confusion, the fairy rolls her eyes, and comes closer. "Emma is the product of true love. Combine that with true love's kiss, and what do you get?"

" _Pure_ magic," Tink says, before either of them can hazard a guess. At this point, Emma settles fully against him, content to let the Lady Bell have her conversation with herself. "Pan rigged the magical thoroughfare between Neverland and Duodenary so that he could exploit it, if he wished." She looks at Emma, then, smiles softly at the sleepy expression on her face.

 _No one Emma can't charm, indeed,_ Killian thinks.

"You and your people were never truly free," Tink says. "Not until now. He intended to reverse the connection, to draw the time out of other, adjacent realms, and channel it through to Duodenary, to _reverse_ time, as it were, to start over and over again as he pleased. He made a mistake, leaving his heart in his chest. And now you've slayed the demon, and have broken the curse."

Killian hums, Emma does as well, too tired to be impressed with themselves. The Lady Bell seems exasperated.

"You know, when I heard you were back, _Killian_ , I was all set to be off with your miserable head. I thought you were nothing but a greedy pirate."

Emma's hands tighten where they clutch at his coat.

"But clearly," Tink says and looks at Emma, "something has changed."

Killian scratches beneath his ear with his hook, looks down at the ground. He's quite certain he doesn't deserve her forgiveness, _absolutely_ certain he at least deserves a threating blade to the throat. But all sins, it seems, can be forgiven when someone loves you, when you love someone in return.

"Aye," he says. "It has."

"Listen," Emma says. "It really is great to meet you, and I'm sure I'll hear all about this…" She waves a hand between them, stopping on a shallow yawn as she grasps at the charms that dangle on his necklace. "… _history_ here some other time. But we either need to find the nearest portal home, or the nearest cushy surface. Almost dying like six times really takes it out of you."

Tink smiles. "I told them you wouldn't stay for the party."

"Party?" Emma scoffs. "We broke the curse like ten minutes ago."

"Fairies," Killian says. "Always prepared."

Tink looks amused, and a bit exasperated. She takes Emma by the hand, who takes Killian by the hand, and they travel like children through the underbrush, down to the pond where the spirits were flowing in. Only now, the skies are empty of death and decay, leaving only clear, cool air in its wake, shimmering not with stolen magic and dark purpose, but with the life that stirs all around them.

Killian, of course, had very nearly forgotten how beautiful Neverland could be. The shadows of Skull Rock melt away, and the creatures around them stir to life. The darkness infecting the island seems to have dissipated. Firebirds arc gracefully overhead, their tails leaving trails of light behind. Ferns at their feet twist in the wind, lighting up to life as they're disturbed. The leaves of the trees above flutter away from their branches, coalescing into shapes of all kinds, watching curiously as the three of them trail by. The vegetation around the pond glows with the blues and purples that seem to live in the water, stirred by the multicolored fowl who sing softly at their arrival. Tink leans down, drops something into the water, and three portals stir to life, whirlpools turning gently with the ripples in the water.

"It's your choice," Tink says. "Go where you will. I can't say I won't see you again, but I can't imagine you'll be vacationing in Neverland."

"Nope," Emma says. She pauses, and regards Tink with a curious expression, before she says, terribly genuine, "Thank you."

"Thank _you_ , Emma," Tink answers, and she glances up at Killian. "You too, Hook."

He waves her off. "Our debts are squared, Lady Bell. No need for thanks."

"That they are." Tink's smile fades, and she begins to back away, into the brush. "That spell only lasts so long, you know. I'll tell the others about you. If you ever return, expect no trouble from us."

The Lady Bell pauses, then, and taps at her chin. The shadows around her lick at her shoulders, and she seems half-disappeared already. But there's a glint in her eyes, prickling at something in the back of Killian's mind. Like she _knows_ something.

"What?" he says, holding tighter to Emma's hand.

Emma makes a gentle noise of protest, and he relaxes his grip, though he does not look away from the fairy before him.

" _What_ what?" Emma says, wriggling her fingers beneath his.

"She knows something," he says, glancing at Emma before he looks back at Tink, waving his hook accusingly. "You know something."

"Just like you _know_ her, I bet," Tink says, grinning when Killian quirks a brow.

"Pardon?"

"Didn't you ever wonder why the bean brought you to Duodenary?"

He can feel Emma's eyes on him, but he doesn't look away, only down at the ground before him, unseeing as he puzzles over the day he'd been dropped into the unforgiving waters of the Pelagy. First he'd wondered if something had gone awry, if the magic was faulty. But then he'd only scrambled to survive. There was no use dwelling on it, especially once he'd discovered that Duodenarians didn't much care to travel between realms, given their history, and so he'd moved on, trying to find a different way to return to Neverland. Or at least…pretending to try, when the weariness of a life ill spent began to drag at the tails of his coat.

"I suppose it simply malfunctioned," Killian says, rather dismissively.

"I'm sorry," Emma says, tugging at his hand and stepping into his line of sight. "What's this about a _bean_?"

"A _magic_ bean," Tink corrects. "Hook threw it into the seas in the Enchanted Forest, intending to return to Neverland." The Lady Bell pauses, and looks back to him. "But you didn't _think_ of Neverland, now did you?"

"I most certainly _did_ ," Killian protests. "I tossed it into the waters below, and I remember thinking…"

 _Thinking of home_ , he realizes. Not Neverland, but _home_. Imagining where he belonged, the bean clutched tight in his hand before splashing lightly down below.

Tink smiles, and slips even further into the shadows, until hardly a specter of the Lady remains behind.

"You should know better than anyone," she says, "that magic works differently in different realms. You threw in the bean, and thought of home. And it lingered, didn't it? There in the magic-saturated waters of Duodenary. Nudging at you until you'd found it, giving you a purpose, molding you just a bit, as though you'd been _born_ there – "

"Wait," Emma interrupts. "So some weird magical…" She waves her arms around, searching for the proper term. "… _thing_ made it so he can wrangle the way he does?" Her face falls, and she leans back on her heels. "So that we felt like – "

"Of _course_ it can't make you _feel_ anything. Fate merely presents an opportunity," Tink intones, then looks to him. "Isn't that right, Killian?"

Emma smiles, much to his surprise, though it's still shadowed with uncertainty. "You say that a lot, huh?"

"It's the _truth_ ," he says, quietly. Killian looks down at her, then back at the Lady before them as she sinks ever further into the purple-dark forest of Neverland.

"You thought of home," Tink says. "And here you are. What you do next is up to you."

She bids them both a farewell, then, with a terribly precocious smile, swallowed at last by the pitch roiling around them, beneath the waving canopy above. Then they're alone together once more, looking at one another, listening to the sounds of the forest, the sounds of the portals as they spin away beside them.

"Magic bean," Emma repeats, rolling the words around in her mouth. "That sounds really stupid, you know that?"

Killian smiles. "Aye." He frowns, though, when she seems uncertain, reaching up to twist her fingers in the fabric of his coat. "She's right, Swan. This is no spell." Then, quieter, leaning down to catch her eyes with his, "I love you."

Her hand twists harder, and her lashes flutter. "It's not that. I know magic when I feel it. And this is just…"

"Aye," he says. "It's just."

They stand together, in weighted silence, for several long moments, despite Tink's warning, that the portals won't last forever. The magic in the water spins and spins, with no sign of wearing down. So they simply stand – she watching him, and he watching her, awash in the knowledge that _home_ stands in front of him. Not _because_ of magic, but because he was shown the way, and chose to follow it.

"What is it?" Killian says.

Emma shakes her head, stares up at him, chewing lightly at her lips, and he imagines she's thinking much the same. Though exhaustion still weighs heavy on her shoulders, her eyes are bright beneath the brilliant starlight. Rather suddenly, Killian finds himself wishing he could make love to her here, in the water, down on the shore.

"I'm tired," she answers simply, truthfully, after a while. "I just want to go…"

Go _home_ , of course, but here in the unfamiliar night of a familiar realm, she can't bring herself to say it, and neither can he, tuckered beyond reason and swaying on his feet. And the portals – nearly forgotten in the waters beside them – begin to spin faster, and so he satisfies himself with a chaste kiss to her cheek before he turns back to the pond.

"Which one's which?" Emma says.

They lean over the water. One shows the great current of Clockwork Bay, where the _Jolly Roger_ is yet moored. Another shows a city with impossibly tall buildings, men and women in dark clothes, machines making a ruckus as they clamber loudly down the black and yellow streets. The screeching noises and crowds of people like he's never seen before make him wince.

Emma makes a curious noise. "Where the hell is _that_?"

"No clue whatsoever," he answers. "Pass."

They glance down into the last, and he sees a familiar harbor, one he visited quite frequently during his time in the Enchanted Forest. The one where he met Milah, where they scorned her husband, near to where he lost his hand. He grits his teeth, jaw jumping beneath flesh as he thinks briefly on the meaning of _home_. The sun is shining there, beating down from overhead. The trees are all a bright, familiar green. The waters stir with creatures he'd grown up seeing. Though magic is not uncommon, it's not nearly as pervasive, and he wonders what it would be like to return, how it would feel to go where he'd been meaning – at the very least _pretending_ – to return. And though the thought is not entirely unpleasant, he thinks simply, _Emma's not there._

"That's the Enchanted Forest, isn't it?" she says.

"Aye."

She hesitates, then, and he looks down at her perplexed, before she says. "Do you want to…?" She gestures down at the portal. "Because I mean, we don't have to go down the same – "

"Bloody _hell_ , Swan." He takes a step backwards, stands by the portal that leads back to Duodenary. He pulls her to his chest, lifts her so her lips are level with his. "I'm _already_ home. I think we've established that many times over. I've _made_ my choice."

She smiles, presses the barest of kisses to his lips. "You sure?"

"Never been _more_ sure of anything, love."

Emma smiles, and though it's perhaps more hesitant than he would like, it's still bright, brighter even than the meteors that turn in erratic patterns overhead. He kisses her, lightly, because he wants to, because he can. Though, it's only for a moment, before Emma pulls away, hooks her foot around behind his calf, and smiles at him before she says –

"Me neither."

– and trips the both of them into the water with a great splash, and with an even greater sense of hope, of love, of longing fulfilled, as they tumble home, together.


	7. Part Seven

Summary: Intending to return to Neverland after his quest for revenge comes to an abrupt end, Killian Jones finds himself in Duodenary, a realm whose existence allows Neverland, and the people therein, to live forever. After months of trying and failing to find a way to go home, a princess comes looking to him for help.

Notes: Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to read/review/favorite/follow. I really appreciate it! This little story was a labor of love, and I hope you've had as much fun with it as I have.

* * *

It's all very stereotypical, really.

Emma, being anxious to get home, had rushed to the helm, casting off immediately for Duo Twelve. The _Jolly Roger_ , of course, heeded her wishes, as if Emma had been alongside her since the Royal Navy had cracked a bottle against her graceful hull. There in the Gear, it was a simple matter to sail home, crossing out of the gyre with the last of the pixie dust he'd found in the belly of the ship. They'd stopped momentarily in the harbor of Duo Eleven, where he'd last left his crew, Killian anxious to leave them a message.

Only then did it occur to him – to _both_ of them – that only a few days had passed. When he told Smee to kick the crew into gear –

"These clock metaphors are really sticking to you," Emma had said.

"You're rubbing off on me, Swan."

– and make their own bloody way down the coast to Duo Twelve, Killian thought of the centuries. Nearly three of them. Long, lonely, gory, dissatisfying…toppled in as many days by the woman at his side.

When he tells her as much just as they're docking in her home harbor, Emma stands on his toes and kisses his cheek. He giggles like a proper fool.

From then, it was a whirlwind, sweeping introductions, joyous declarations of _true_ freedom from the darkness infecting Neverland, leaving only the gentle flow of time behind. It was already nearing the anniversary of their break from the dreadful realm, and so the celebrations, he's told, are more raucous than they've ever been. Killian had been content to ride it out, to melt into the shadows, and to wait in the empty wings of the castle while the celebrations went underway. To perhaps entice Emma to do the same.

Needless to say, when he finds himself rather the main event of a grand ceremony, he begins to wonder if he left Neverland with his sanity intact.

"You're _literally_ just walking down an aisle, getting a thing, and sitting down beside me," Emma says. She stands before him, doing one of the two dozen buttons on his vest. The coat they've given him is much like his own, only with intricate, blue stitching crisscrossing up along the collars and cuffs. He feels rather like a decorated water fowl, starched and primped within moments of the end of his life. And though Emma neatly buffs the wrinkles from his shirt and vest, she pops one side of the collar of his coat, and runs her fingers through his hair until he's certain it's a right mess. He grins down at her, despite his whinging, and she grins back, tucking her fingers into the hairs at the nape of his neck.

"Seriously," she says. "It will take like five minutes. How is this hard?"

"I must say, Swan, I'm a fan of much more private celebrations. Far more satisfying, far less clothing."

Emma flicks his ear, kisses his chin before she pulls back. "Too bad, Jones. You're a hero, now. Heroes get rewarded. And not like _that_."

Killian quirks a brow.

"At least…not until the 'works start."

He frowns. "The 'works?"

"You'll see."

He only nods, and coaxes her to place one last, chaste kiss against his lips before she disappears, likely taking her place at her parents' side.

 _Parents,_ he thinks. _Royalty._

Killian had never had much pleasant experience with either. But David and Snow shine the way Emma shines. Their story is unconventional, to say the least – a princess-turned-thief on the run, falling violently in love with a shepherd posing as a prince. More than once, in the days since they arrived, Killian had found himself snatching decadent treats from the kitchen from beneath the noses of the chefs, only to find Snow doing the very same.

"Bandit," she'd said, the first time, with a smile.

"Pirate," he'd answered, trading the berries he'd taken for the chocolate drink in the Lady's hands.

"Emma's favorite."

David had been more difficult to charm, but only by steps. He'd shown the Lord his ship, all the while conveying, with as few words as possible, that Emma held power over the helm in their relationship, so to speak.

"Emma told me you nearly died for her," David had said.

"I'd do it again," Killian had answered, red creeping up his ears and down his chest.

And that had been that.

Now, on the eve of the celebration of Duodenary's freedom – even more meaningful than ever before – he's to receive commendations, likely a medal of some kind, in front of a great deal of the citizens of Duo Twelve. Again, as the rustling behind the great, oak doors before him grows louder, Killian mourns his fearsome reputation. There's no hiding it now. Or so Emma had said –

"You're a good man, Killian."

"So you say, love."

– just the night before. Small price to pay, he supposes, for the chance to remain at Emma's side. He would have given much more.

At the third blast of a dreadful sextuplet of horns, the doors before him are opened, and he struts as naturally as he can down along the aisle. Suddenly, Killian feels as though he's forgotten how to use his legs. Each step is a concerted effort by his hips, his knees, by the lead he feels has dropped down into the toes of boots. Looking up at Emma doesn't help much, either. Though he doubts the crowd around him notices, he's certain she sees the heft in his gait, what with the laughter sparkling in her eyes. He narrows his eyes, playfully, and, well, his feet _do_ cooperate a trifle more.

When he stands before the Lady Snow, he's surprised to find anxious boredom replaced with a powerful knot rising in his chest. The expression on the woman's face is not only grateful, but accepting. He looks over to David, and finds that the soft, pale blue of the man's eyes reminds him of Liam. Rather suddenly, he knows he's found a family, one that will last.

"Captain Killian Jones," Snow says, loud enough for all to hear, her voice echoing sonorously throughout the cathedral of a room. "We, as a Duo and as a realm, thank you for your unflinching loyalty to a realm that is not even your own. By the time granted me by the twelve Lordships of Duodenary, I offer you an honorary seat in our court, so that you may always have a home with us."

Snow pauses, then, and steps down from her throne. Killian stands frozen, terribly unused to the attention. When the Lady smiles at him, however, his gut gives him a rest, and he breathes, counting up to twelve and back down again.

"We grant you this Timepiece," she continues, and pulls a simple, gleaming wooden box from behind her back. The only intricacy is the crest, carved from jade and accented with onyx. It catches the light falling in from the six o'clock windows, bounces it in gentle rainbows along the wall to his right. She places it gently in his hand, making certain he has a sure grip before she says –

"So that you may always know when you are, and when you're going."

She takes another step, then, and finds that, unlike her daughter, the Lady Snow smells of sharp earth, the tang of metals, the faint, sour notes of tender, spring fruits. Killian notices, if only because her hands come up to frame his face when she comes to stand before him. She pulls him down, just far enough to kiss his forehead. He's certain his face is flaming red, and he can't help the demure smile that falls over his lips.

"And we offer you our friendship," she says. "That you may never be alone."

Killian's bottom lip wobbles. A glance at Emma shows much the same.

"Do you accept these gifts, as we have presented them to you?"

He nods, whispers a broken _Aye_ before the hall erupts into cheers. Luckily, he's only to endure it for a few moments more before the Lordship and their people break out of their formation, and begin mingling to music that seems to fall from the rafters. He stands rather awkwardly in place until Emma glides down the stairs, and takes the box from his hand. Only now does he notice the rich, white fabrics draped over her person, the graceful, delicate flower crown adorning the free waves of her hair. Either she was wearing a coat before, or he was too occupied with her lips, and with his own anticipation, to take stock.

"Not so bad, right?" she says. "See, look."

He looks down when she opens the box, and the Timepiece inside appears rather simple, if not expertly made. Closer inspection reveals that the hands are spinning.

"Think it's broken, love."

Emma rolls her eyes. "Will you just _pick it up_."

He regards her skeptically for a moment before he removes it from its velvet setting. The hands spin faster – two of them, he realizes, both of the same length. Where once they were both black, now one appears a fathomless shade of blue, the other redder than rubies. Both the blue and the red settle on the number twelve.

"I'm the red," Emma says. "You're the blue. They're pretty rare. I made this one, though, so hopefully it doesn't, you know, blow up in your face."

He's certain she expects him to laugh, but Killian simply breathes, once more in awe of the simple purity of the magic she wields.

"I think Timepiece means something different to us than it does to you," she says. "Judging by your face."

"It certainly does," he answers, with some measure of awe. She takes it from his hand, then and sets the pin into his vest. It's a comfortable weight over his heart, and he vows then and there to always keep it on his person.

"Except for when you're naked," she says.

He smiles, fondly. "Aye."

"I wouldn't take it to swim, either. I mean, I'm sure it would be fine, but who really knows."

"Aye, as you say. Although, rarely do I swim with a stitch of clothing."

"Maybe not to bed, either, the pins might – "

"Swan, are you being purposefully difficult?"

"I'm rambling until you kiss me."

Killian smiles, and leans down, until his lips are very nearly flush with hers. Here in this room, where spindling architecture melts from practical corners into elegant statues, where stained glass depicts the creatures of the waters and of the forest, where people of all sorts wear silks and cottons, dancing to instruments that make the most curious, twining sounds, he simply kisses the woman that he loves. And she kisses him in return.

"As the lady commands," he says.

Emma laughs.

* * *

As the darkest part of night approaches, the festivities begin to make their way outside, where – and he's heard this several times, having an inkling, but not entirely certain what's in store – the people will watch the _'works_. He and Emma alike have about reached their limit, mingling their way across the room until they stand near the doors. She leans against him, looking up and into his eyes. They have a long, silent conversation, one that's entirely inappropriate for the children running underfoot.

"About to sneak away, aren't you?"

Snow and David appear out of the crowd as they move out of the doors on the other side of the great room, where a balcony tapers down into gardens filled with flora and fauna of all sorts. He'd taken a peek when they'd danced their way about the room. Rows and rows of flowering trees, fountains made of stones he's never seen before, all glittering beneath the galaxies that turn in circles and circles, up in the sky above.

"Aye, your Ladyship," Killian says. "I believe the _Jolly Roger_ may have even a superior view from the waters."

David eyes him skeptically. "I don't doubt it."

Snow rolls her eyes at her husband, pulls at the gleaming, golden buttons on his vest until he looks down at her.

"You kids go have fun," she says. Killian bites his tongue, remiss to remind her that, in fact, he likely has a century or two on the both of them, on everyone in this very room and in the gardens adjacent. "Be careful of the spray."

Killian frowns. "The spray?"

The Lady looks to Emma, then. "You haven't told him?"

Emma shrugs. "Better seen than heard, you know?" She turns to Killian, hand sliding rather boldly up into his hair. "I can't believe you've been here for so many months and haven't heard of the _'works_."

"I've _heard_ of them, darling. It seemed something I could neither steal nor barter with, so I didn't bother learning much else."

She rolls her eyes. This expression, he realizes, she gets from her mother.

"Pardon us, your Ladyship," Killian says, then looks to David. "Your Lordship. We'll see you both on the morrow, aye?"

"You will," Snow says.

The royal couple begin to retreat when Emma pinches the skin at the nape of his neck.

"Ow?" he says, mildly affronted. The Lady Snow stops to looks up at him, amused. Killian exchanges a silent conversation with the Lady before he looks at Emma. "What?"

"Don't you have something to say to my father?"

He's confused for just a moment, before it dawns. He sighs, long suffering, and looks beseechingly at the Lord David. He fiddles with the timepiece pinned to his blue, brocaded vest. He pulls Emma tighter into his side, thinking of where they were then – when he'd made the promise to self-deprecate to her father – and where they are now.

"You're smarter than I by spades, your Lordship," he says, with a grim monotone.

David laughs. "I want to hear this story."

"I fear the tale in its entirety would be inappropriate – "

Emma yanks the rest of that very sentence straight out of his mouth with a well-placed smack to his gut. David looks at him sharply, but Snow, again, is only amused. She drags David alongside her, plying him with gentle fingers and strong opinions. In moments, they're alone, the rest of the people having left the room with their Lordship. He and Emma alike let out a sigh of relief.

"To the _Jolly_ then?" she says.

He smiles, grins really, freely, unburdened. He takes her hand with his hook, wriggling it gently beneath her fingers, and answers –

"Aye."

* * *

"I can't believe you have six of these coats."

Killian laughs, even as Emma snuggles down into the fabric. They've the lot of his coats –

"All. _Six_ ," she says.

– laid out beneath them, a mattress of sorts.

When they'd escaped the festivities at last, Emma had tightened her grip on his hook, practically dragging him down to the docks, where the _Jolly Roger_ 's moored out in the deepest of the three basins in the harbor. He was alarmed, to say the least, when a pale, blue grass, appeared to be crawling its disastrous way up the hull.

"Creeping eelgrass," Emma had explained. "You have to ask it to let your ship go when you want to set out to sea."

"You're bloody joking."

"Ask politely, it lets go faster."

He'd whinged spectacularly as they crossed the gangplank. But then, of course, she'd kissed the complaints off his tongue. She'd taken great care in removing his decorative garments. At least, until she'd had him down to his pants, and had nearly thrown him down the stairs to his cabin to speed the removal of his boots.

 _Impatient_ , he'd catalogued. Because he could. Because he had the time.

Emma had made rather feverish love to him in his own bed, rising above him and into the shafts of starlight filtering in through the portside window. And he to her, trying desperately not to think of how she'd felt in his arms only days ago, shivering with pain, serving as little more than a tool, as a conduit, for exactly the same sort of darkness that took his brother, that took his Milah. He'd found his release with his hand clutching at her neck, with his wrist pressed into the small of her back, breathing the hurt, and the fear, out against her neck.

After several long moments of recovery, he'd made to take her again, just by the window, where he could whisper endearments in her ear, where he could perhaps tell the eelgrass to bugger off. Only, Emma had rebuffed him, and he had lain, spread eagle upon his bed, watching as she quested for something to –

"It cushions us from the splinters," Emma says.

Now, they lie above deck, bare to the noontime winds. He's made love to woman on the deck of his ship before, but never has he reclined simply to watch the stars, to keep a weather eye on the sky as his love fiddles with the leather beneath them.

"Pardon, Swan, but _what_ splinters? Are you implying the _Jolly_ is in need of repair?"

"Fine. You can lay _your_ bare ass on the wood, and scoot around just to prove there aren't any."

"Perhaps she could be sanded down a bit."

The ship creaks beneath them, and he reaches out to pat the planks before he turns back to Emma, beckons her back in to the circle of his arms. She's quick to comply, to turn so her back is against his chest. Killian breathes, and watches as she rises and falls against them. With one of his coats bundled up behind him, he's propped just enough to see the castle jutting out above the canopy. It really is marvelous, he thinks. Not so marvelous as the sea, but as telltale magic shimmers in the air, the stone begins to gleam, rippling in the wake of the gentle display of power.

"What are we watching for?" he says.

"There are three kinds," she explains, quietly. "Waterworks, clockworks, and fireworks."

"The latter I'm familiar with."

"Waterworks are like…" He can hear the frown in the sound of her voice as she gestures vaguely. "…they draw the water out of the harbor, in all sorts of shapes. They kind of wiggle – " At the word _wiggle_ , she does the very same in his arms, and he can feel yet another rush of desire in the pit of his stomach. " – in the air and then rain water everywhere, hence the spray my mom was talking about. Only for like a second, though."

He hums, thoughtfully, and catches her hand as it moves to gesture once more. He fiddles with her fingers, noses a bit of hair away from her neck so he can place a tender kiss beneath her ear.

"And the clockworks?"

"Well," she answers, quieter still, turning her neck up and into his lips. He smiles, and kisses her again before he reclines, and lets his cheek rest against hers. "They sort of…I don't know, they mess with time."

"Sounds dangerous."

"Not like _that_. It's just in a bubble. Fireworks are over in a second, and so are waterworks. Imagine slowing them down."

Killian _does_ imagine it, for a moment, but it in his long life, he's come to understand that _imagining_ a spectacle rarely competes with the selfsame sight.

"And when shall they start?"

"Like forty-seven seconds from now."

" _Like_ forty-seven seconds," Killian laughs. "Shall I ever possess the internal clock of a Duodenarian?"

She laughs in turn, but shushes him. He can feel her squirm with anticipation, which does nothing for the tightness in his belly. He longs to turn her around, to settle above her, to watch her writhe beneath him with the light of the great and many galaxies above warming ever so slightly at the tender flesh of his back.

"Here it goes," she says, and a moment later, he hears a piercing whistle, before the fireworks explode overhead. He's seen them before, of course, but they're truly something to behold. All colors, all sorts, all shapes and sizes. After a few minutes, though –

"Four minutes and eighteen seconds?"

"Two minutes and fifty-three seconds," she counters. "Your clock is slow."

– he can feel the ship begin to tremble over ripples in the water. Emma reaches back and turns his chin, just as the water coalesces into something of a long, sinewy dragon. It arcs in a silent rush through the air. It twists above them, and Killian is quite certain he's never seen anything so magical in all of his days. He tells her as much, and she only laughs, delighted, commanding he watch. A different sort of magic begins to rise through the air. It's something like a globular mirror, reflecting the stars above. It too fractures when it reaches the height of a great, blue green firework. The water creature turns in a perfect circle just along the edge of the growing color. And time does, in fact, begin to slow in the sky. The water turns, but no faster than the second hands of a clock.

" _Exactly_ as fast as second hands," Emma tells him.

The great, aquatic beast turns like an Ouroboros, the blue and green sparks behind it creeping outward, propelled by the force of the central explosion. The mirror-like shards of time fracture and fracture, over and over again, until they glitter like pixie dust. The spectacle drags on, and Killian is certain he's never seen anything more beautiful, _anything_ more captivating.

"How do you lot keep this realm a secret?" he wonders aloud.

"I have _no_ idea," she says.

It's perhaps eight seconds more –

"Eleven," she corrects.

"'S close, eh, Swan?"

– before the shards of time fizzle out at last. The firework fizzles out, and the creature in the skin spins thrice more, each time faster than the last, before it too explodes. Water droplets smelling of salt and ash spray the county over. He watches as Emma covers her face, and laughs, curling in on herself. Killian has spent many windy evenings catching the spray of the sea on his face, so he merely blinks against the water the falls directly in his eyes. He feels thoroughly refreshed when the last of the droplets sprinkle over the ship.

"Emma," he says, breathless. "That was _marvelous_."

"Right?" she says. "There are three more just like it."

The second, as it turns out, is much like the first, only with an eel, the sort that twists again and again into the shape of an _S_ before it rains down like the first. The third and fourth set a terrible knot in his belly, the former being a tall ship, much like the _Jolly_ , and the latter being a Swan, what spreads its wings in a glorious display before it too rains, warm and sweet, upon them. He's unbearably chuffed by the time the sky quiets. Swan, too, seems pleasantly surprised.

"I can't believe he did that," she says.

"Your father?"

She nods, and turns on her side, pulls on his shoulder until he faces her. He wonders if she means to ask him something, to _tell_ him something, but she only smiles, and he in turn. They lay in silence for a long while. Here in the dark, as the festivities across the way die away, and as even several of the stars wink to sleep, he can hear the hiss of the grass against the ship, and the lap of warm, salty waves against the hull. He can hear every breath that Emma takes. The sails are secured in the masts above them, but he can still hear the breeze tinkling through the rigging. Somewhere on the other side of the harbor, a foghorn blows, muted by a distance, and by the moisture that rises in the air, up from the sea.

Killian thinks that she means to sleep like this, and she seems content, but just when the bugs on the shore, those signaling the hours before morning, come to life, she shifts closer, and looks up at him from beneath her lashes.

"You remember the Rise?" she says.

He smiles, softly. "There are days I think of nothing else, love. Of the look on your face. Never before have I known a woman so passionate."

She blushes, and reaches up to fiddle with the charms that still hang around his neck.

"Maybe…" she says. She nibbles on her lips when she pauses, and he longs, rather fiercely, to kiss away the curious tilt to her mouth. "You know, creatures still go to Neverland when they die. Maybe when we…" She gestures, and he frowns, thinking sourly on her death. "…well, we can go too."

Killian regards her silently for a moment before he guides her gently to her back. She settles comfortably in the warm indentation left by his own body, and he atop her. He falls into the cradle of her thighs, but presses no further. He looks to her eyes, to her mouth, to the graceful arch of her collarbone. He looks to her hair, spread in gently wavelets down over where he rests his elbows. He looks to the dimples in her cheeks when she smiles, and the charming dent in her chin.

"My love," he says. "We can do whatever you wish. But in the meantime…"

He sighs, then, lays a brief kiss against her lips before he settles his ear against her chest, where her heart beats, strong and measured. Now, when she breathes, he rises like the tide, and falls back to her when her breath ruffles over his hair.

"We have plenty of time," he says.

She weaves her fingers through his hair, pulls one of his coats to drape over them. She kisses the top of his head, and he's quite certain he's never been so content.

"You think so?" she says, half taken by sleep already.

"Aye, Emma," he answers. "All the time in the realms."

With nary a discomfort, Killian Jones falls to sleep atop his true love, the Timepiece ticking away softly somewhere in the heap of leathers. The _Jolly Roger_ creaks, and the waves of the harbor swell, stirred by the magic of true love. The currents of the Clockwork yet turn, the Gear yet still. The magic of time flows inward from Neverland, and the creatures bearing its mark flow back. All as it should be, he whispers –

"I love you."

And she answers, as ever –

"I love you too."

– in the gentle, timely realm of Duodenary.


End file.
